


Waiting for My Real Life to Begin

by Sena



Series: Waiting to Begin [1]
Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-17
Updated: 2010-11-17
Packaged: 2017-10-13 06:05:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 31,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/133805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sena/pseuds/Sena
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jared and Jensen are college roommates. Jensen's gay and Jared's straight. Sort of.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first roommate Jared gets is this really tiny little dude named Phil who has some serious anger management issues. And fine, so Jared's a good six inches taller than most guys, but Phil's really tiny, like maybe 5'1" if his shoe's got a thick sole. Jared's mom had a Chihuahua once that never stopped barking and always tried to attack their black lab, and Phil reminds him a lot of that dog.

Jared's in a quad with three other guys--two sleeping rooms and one common room--and the other guys, Chad and Adam, are both pretty cool. Phil, though...

Jared's mama always told him that everything in life happened for a reason and that it was usually to teach you how to be a better person. So when Phil puts his hand through the drywall next to Jared's desk because he's pissed that some girl in the cafeteria blew him off, Jared takes a deep breath and figures that God's trying to teach him patience.

"Something you wanna talk about?" Jared asks, putting his pen down. He really needs to finish studying for his pre-calc test, but maybe all Phil needs is just somebody to be nice to him.

"Fucking bitch of a whore," Phil growls, and that's just not right. Jared was raised better than to ever talk about women like that.

"She wasn't interested, man," Jared tells him with his most understanding expression. "That doesn't make her a bitch or a whore, just means she wasn't interested. It happens and lots of times, it doesn't even have anything to do with you. Maybe she's got a boyfriend, maybe she just got out of a bad relationship, maybe she's a lesbian. You never know. You can't take it personal."

Phil, apparently, doesn't think that sounds at all reasonable because he starts yelling and kicking shit and ripping down Jared's Spurs poster and oh, hell no. Jared's patience only goes so far. You do _not_ disrespect the Spurs.

He jumps up off his chair and grabs Phil around the waist, flips him over his shoulder and carries him out into the common room. Chad looks up from the Playstation and says, "The fuck's going on in there, dude?"

"Phil needs to cool off," Jared says, still holding Phil over one shoulder as he opens the door to the hall. Phil's still shouting and kicking but Jared's got a good hold on him, carries him into the bathroom, turns on one of the showers and flips Phil down onto his feet while shoving him beneath the cold water. Phil yells and sputters and fights it, but Jared just holds him there until he stops.

"You calm?" Jared asks.

Phil's teeth are chattering. "I'm calm."

"You gonna stay calm when I let you go?"

Phil nods. Jared lets him go, turns off the water. Phil stays there, back pressed against the shower wall, shivering and looking at Jared with wary eyes.

"All right," says Jared. "Hell. Didn't mean to freeze you half to death. Come on and I'll buy you a coffee."

Phil drips all the way back to the room. Chad glances up from the XBox and raises an eyebrow, but he doesn't ask.

Once Phil's dried off and changed, he and Jared walk down to the Union for coffee.

"Seriously, man," says Jared. "You can't freak out like that over every little thing."

That was the wrong thing to say because Phil thinks Jared's calling him little. He throws his coffee onto Jared's chest, pushes back from the table so hard he knocks his chair over, grips the table and shoves it over, and stalks away yelling curses about Jared's mama that just aren't true.

Jared sits there for a moment, too surprised to move. He's still got his coffee in his hand, poised to drink. He sees a movement out of the corner of his eye, and the Union coffee shop's lone employee is standing there nervously twisting a rag in her hands.

"I'm sorry," Jared tells her. "I am so, so sorry. My roommate. He's got...issues."

"Yeah," says the girl. "I, uh, I called security. Not on you, but...you know. It policy. We're supposed to."

"That's OK," he says. He looks down at the overturned table and chair. "I'll help you clean up."

"You don't have to," she says.

He shrugs, gets up to put the table and chair back into place. Campus security shows up while she's wiping up the spilled coffee and Jared explains what happened, tells them about Phil's freak out in the dorm and how he'd thought maybe a talk over coffee would help smooth things out. They take down Phil's name, their room number, and Jared feels a little bit like a traitor, but hell. If Phil had gone off on the coffee shop girl instead of Jared, she could have actually gotten hurt.

"I am really sorry about that," he tells her. "I'd offer to buy you coffee to make up for it, but..."

"It's all right," she says. Now that he's stopped being completely mortified by Phil's actions, Jared can see how seriously cute she is, sexy in a perky, wholesome way.

"I'm Jared."

She holds out her hand. "Sandy. And I think your shirt's ruined. Mocha stains don't really come out of white."

He looks down at the large blotch covering most of his shirt. Yeah. Way to make an impression, Padelecki.

The thing is, Jared's a pretty talkative guy. He's friends with everyone, always knows what to say and how to make people laugh, only now he's drawing a blank. He stutters out another apology and leaves, feeling like a complete loser. He should have asked her if she wanted him to wait around until campus security made sure Phil wasn't coming back. He should have asked for her number.

He gets halfway back to the dorm, turns and heads back to the Union, then hesitates at the doors. He doesn't want to seem like a creepy stalker, and the fact that he was there with Phil earlier sure won't do anything to reassure her. He heads back to the dorms, stops three-quarters of the way there, turns around, turns back, and stomps up to his room wondering why he couldn't have met a girl that cute at a party or in a class or something, why it'd had to be then.

"Dude," says Adam as soon as Jared walks into the suite. "Campus police were just here talking to Phil. Apparently he freaked out at the coffee shop and, like, kicked tables and shit over and, man, I mean he's little right? I mean, he makes me feel like a big guy and so totally not, right? I mean, I'm kind of tall, you have to give me my string bean props, but seriously, I don't think I could take him. He's just...I think he needs therapy. And I'm not just saying that because I'm from California and everyone in California is in therapy, which is totally not true, which is unfortunate because, seriously? I have known some people in my life that needed serious, serious therapy, but maybe Phil needs it more than the rest of them put together. What happened to your shirt?"

Jared really likes Adam. He talks a lot, sure, but so does Jared, and Adam's pretty funny most of the time, plus he owns the Xbox and PSP they all share.

"I'm thinking he's probably the one that Tiny went apeshit on," Chad says from around the sucker in his mouth. Chad always calls Phil "Tiny." Chad's kind of insensitive.

"Really?" Adam asks. "Did he really kick down all the tables and shit because that's just...I mean, if he was the hero in an action movie that would be badass, but he's not and I'd really like to get my security deposit back, you know?"

"Just the one table," Jared tells him. "After he threw his coffee on me."

Chad laughs. "What a fucking douche." And Chad should know. Jared likes him well enough, but you kind of have to overlook his overwhelming douchiness in order to put up with him.

Jared goes to sleep thinking about Sandy and wakes up with Phil sitting on the top of his desk, flicking a Swiss Army knife open and closed over and over again. He's glaring at Jared and when Jared sits up, bleary eyed, and says, "Um...Phil?" Phil grins at him in a very disturbing way.

"You're not bigger than me when you're sleeping," Phil says.

"Um," says Jared. "OK." He doesn't know what else to say so he lays back down and closes his eyes. He doesn't sleep though, just spends the rest of the night listening for the moment when Phil tries to stab him in the neck.

He's exhausted by the time his alarm goes off, and while he's in the shower he decides that there's no way around it, he's going to have to see about getting a new roommate. There's being nice and then there's being stupid, and Jared's mama didn't raise stupid.

He leaves for class a few minutes earlier than normal and knocks on the door to his RA's room. It opens just a tiny crack. He sees Mike, his RA, gazing at him for a moment before the door opens wide and Mike grabs him by the front of the shirt and pulls him in before shutting the door again. "Jason," he says cheerfully.

"Jared," he corrects.

"Whatever. What's up?" Mike sits down in one of several beanbag chairs and pulls some sort of purple glass tube towards him and, hey, Jared realizes he's just seen his first bong. College really _is_ educational. "Have a seat."

"Um, I'm actually on my way to class. I just wanted to talk to you real quick about getting a new roommate."

"Problems?" Mike asks him. He pats the beanbag next to him before reaching for the lighter. "Seriously, man. You can talk to me. I'm here for you."

Jared tells him about Phil's little anger management problem, tells him about the wall-punching and the coffee throwing and the watching Jared sleep with a knife in his hands.

Mike is silent for a moment, then exhales a long stream of bluish smoke. "Huh," he says. "I always knew there was something weird about that little fucker. I'll make some calls. You sure you don't want a hit?"

"I'm sure," says Jared, and then because he's not exactly sure about pot-smoking etiquette, he says, "but thank you."

"Any time, man. _I_ am _here_ for _you_."

Jared doesn't know if Mike ever ends up making those calls or not. It doesn't really matter because later that day, Phil gets arrested for attacking some guy on a bike who had ridden too close to his personal space or something. Since the guy he attacked has to go to the hospital, and since he ended up being the Dean of the School of Architecture, Phil gets expelled.

Jared feels a little guilty for being relieved, but not much.

They tell Jared he can keep the single if he pays more. He doesn't feel right asking his folks to hand over more cash just so he can have his own room, though, especially since there's a housing shortage on campus and in some of the dorms, guys have to sleep in the student lounge. He tells the student life people that no, it's OK, he'll take another roommate no problem.

Jared's next roommate is a guy named Randal. He's an engineering and math double major and he studies all the time. Jared actually doesn't see much of him since he's always at the library and never wants to just hang with the rest of the guys.

Randal has a slight emotional breakdown halfway through the semester and his parents come to get him, packing up his stuff with tight, silent faces as Randal cries and rocks in the corner and Jared makes himself scarce.

Jared's third roommate is named Mark and he plays guitar. He plays a lot of guitar. All the time. He's always in their room with his guitar on his knee and his portable amp next to him. Jared wishes he knew more about electronics so he could make the stupid amp short out "accidentally."

He's not psychotic, though, so Jared deals with it, though after two weeks Chad actually storms into their room, rips the cord out of the amp, and throws the amp out the dorm window. Mark's pretty butt hurt about that, but his pouting is preferable to yet another rendition of _Stairway to Heaven_.

Another week after that, Mark moves into a studio apartment with his drummer and some random sound technician.

When Jared's fourth roommate unrolls a huge Swastika flag that he wants to hang in the common room, Adam's eyes go wide and he whispers to Jared, "Um, you know I'm a Jew, right?"

Jared nods, places his hand on the new roommate's arm and shakes his head. "I, uh," he says. "This isn't going to work out."

After that, he considers just paying for the stupid single. When his tells his parents about the Swastika flag, not even his mama can think of anything nice to say, and she can see the good in anybody.

"Well," she says finally, "you're coming home, soon. Maybe next semester things will look up."

"Yeah," he says. The thing is, he'd always kind of looked forward to having a roommate. He knows it's maybe lame or something, but it was just part of the college experience, having a roommate you could hang out with and do things with. He's got Adam and Chad, sure, but it's just not the same. He wants a cool roommate of his own.

There are only two weeks left in the semester when Mike stops him in the hall. "You're getting a new roommate," he says.

Jared sighs.

"No, no, it's cool. I know this guy. OK, so I don't know him, but I know a guy who knows a guy who knows him. I checked him out for you. He's cool. I swear, plus he's been living on, like, a cot in a lounge in Barker Hall for months."

"OK," says Jared. It's not like he can make the guy keep living in a fucking study lounge for the rest of the year when he's got a perfectly good upper bunk to share.

Mike grins. "Fantastic. He moved in this morning while you were at class." He pats Jared on the chest as he walks away. "You're a brave little trooper, Jason."

"I think your new roommate's retarded," Chad says when Jared walks through the door. His girlfriend, Sophia, slaps him in the side of the head. "Ow, woman!"

"You're such a douche."

"I'm not being a douche, I'm being serious. I think he's actually retarded. God. Am I not allowed to say retarded?"

"It's mentally challenged, now," Sophia tells him.

"Fine. Jay, I think your new roommate's mentally challenged."

"Oh," says Jared. That's...well. It hadn't ever occurred to him that he might have a retarded--mentally challenged--roommate. But he figures everybody's got a right to go to college, and his mama's always told him that every one of God's children deserves a fair shake in this world. Jared shrugs. "What's his name?"

"He doesn't even care," Chad says disbelievingly. "He's rooming with fucking Rainman and he doesn't even care."

"That's because he's not a douche."

"Dude's gonna keep you up all night counting matches and shit," Chad tells him.

Jared shrugs. After a tiny little psychopath, an emotionally unstable engineering student, a rock god wannabe, and a Neo-Nazi, he figures a retarded--mentally challenged--guy can't be too bad.

The guy's in their room unpacking his stuff.

"Hey," says Jared. "I'm Jared."

The guy turns and looks at him. He doesn't look retarded, but Jared knows not all retarded--mentally challenged--people look it. "Jensen," the guy says. He doesn't offer any more than that, doesn't even shake Jared's hand. Jared doesn't hold it against him. Hell, it must have been hard to get into college being mentally challenged and all, so he supposes little things like social graces probably don't matter much.

"You're my fifth roommate this semester," Jared tells him. "So I'm just warning you, I might be jinxed. Although, as long as you're not a neo-Nazi with anger management issues you'll probably do just fine." He wonders if he should use smaller words. He wonders if Jensen knows what neo-Nazi means.

Jensen laughs softly, though, and grins at him. "Good to know," he says.

"Those are some serious textbooks," Jared says as he watches Jensen put book after book onto the shelf above his desk. He wonders if it's fair to make mentally challenged people read so much.

"Yeah," Jensen says with a sigh. "Botany and Zoology, Chemistry, Biometrics, and Physics." He touches the spine of each book. "Oh, and Contemporary Ethics." He hefts another textbook up onto the shelf. "I think they want us to need physical therapy ourselves from carting the books to class."

Jensen's voice is soft and he tugs on his ear as he talks, and that's when Jared figures it out. Jensen's not retarded, he's _shy_ , and that's just too fucking adorable for words.

Jared's allowed to call things too fucking adorable for words without worrying about denting his masculinity or anything. It's a perk of being as huge as he is. It's the same reason he can get away with wearing pink and hugging people. Nobody really questions your manhood when you're big enough to crush their throat one handed. Not that Jared would ever crush anybody's throat. He's just not an aggressive guy.

Jared stretches out on his bed and arches his back to crack his spine. He sighs and for the first time all semester, he thinks he's finally got a roommate he likes.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared had four bad roommates in one semester, but now he's finally got a roommate he likes.

Jensen's quiet and neat. He's usually got music playing, but it's soft and in the background. He doesn't even snore. There aren't even two weeks left in the semester, and Jared wonders how long it's going to take until he finds out what Jensen's problem is.

Then he feels guilty for assuming there's got to be something wrong with him. It's not Jensen's fault that Jared's had a string of lousy roommates.

Jensen does hang up a Mavericks poster and well, OK, Jared dislikes the Mavericks, but it's not like it's a Swastika. Plus, it nicely covers the hole Phil had punched in the wall months earlier.

If Jensen's only problem is that he has bad taste in sports teams, Jared's going to count himself lucky.

"Maybe he's a spy," says Adam, not looking up from his PSP.

Jared laughs and rolls his eyes.

"We're trying to figure out what's wrong with him, not things that would make him cool," Chad says. "And we know what's wrong with him. He's retarded."

"He's not retarded," Jared says, smacking Chad lightly on the side of the head.

"Watch the face!" Chad cries. "Jesus! I'm too pretty for bruises, all right?"

And that, of course, requires Jared to smack Chad in the face again. It's kind of a law that if one of your friends talks about how good-looking he is, you have to snap him down a few pegs.

"Ow, stop it, ow!" Chad cries, and he's being a huge baby because Jared's not even hitting him very hard. "You're gonna asphyxiate me with one of your paws, fucker."

Jared grabs Chad around the neck and tucks him under one arm and slaps one of his hands over Chad's nose and mouth, and that's what they're doing when Jensen comes back from class.

Jared removes his hand from Chad's face but keeps him in the headlock. "Hey," he says.

Jensen's mouth quirks into an almost-smile as he watches Chad flail and shove against Jared's side to no avail. Jared's pretty strong and it's not like holding a guy in a headlock is physically taxing or anything.

"A bunch of us are going to catch the Midnight Movie over at the Union if you wanna come along," Jared says.

Jensen shrugs and says, "Yeah, okay," before heading to their room.

"Re-tahr-dehd," Chad whispers, then yelps when Jared squeezes the headlock tighter.

They have a Midnight Movie every weekend on Friday and Saturday nights. It's usually pretty bad, but the movie's free and so is the popcorn. Jared can eat a lot of popcorn.

He's got two paper bags full of popcorn at his feet, Jensen on one side of him, Adam on the other. Chad's and Sophia are sitting in the back row doing God knows what.

The movie's a badly-dubbed kung fu movie from the early 80s, but for as terrible as it is, it's actually pretty good. There's this monk who has to find a virgin male born on the 15th of August to perform some ritual and then a lot of badass fighting moves, plus a Watermelon Monster that makes this screeching noise that's so annoying, Jared's laughing until he has tears rolling down his cheeks. He turns and presses his face against Jensen's shoulder, and Jensen's laughing, too, not quite as hard as Jared is, but still. He pats Jared on the top of the head and says, "Breathe, dude."

Jared's not quite sure what the movie's about even after it's over, and he's pretty sure everybody's just as confused as he is, though nobody really seems to mind. You can't complain much about a free movie with a lot of kung fu in it.

As they leave the Union's theatre, Adam's doing really bad martial arts moves and a really good impression of the chick with antenna-shaped hair and Jared's laughing like the huge dork that he is, so of course that's when he runs into Sandy.

"Um," says Jared as he stops about a foot short of running her over. "Hi!" Too enthusiastic. Way too enthusiastic. He forces himself to bring it down a notch. "Hey, Sandy."

"Hi," she says. There are four girls behind her, talking to each other in hushed tones and flicking their eyes towards him. "Jared, right?"

He nods. The fact that she remembers his name is a good sign. "Yeah. I haven't seen you since the coffee shop. I really am sorry about that, by the way. But, I've got a new roommate." He reaches out and pats Jensen's arm. "This is Jensen. Phil got expelled."

Sandy smiles. "I can't say I'm sorry."

Jensen keeps his hands in his pockets, his eyes on the ground. He glances up at the girls, then glances back down. His shyness is so endearing that Jared has to fight the urge to pick him up and just squeeze him.

"I'm really glad I ran into you," Jared says. "I wanted to ask for your number before but, um, it's not like I made the best impression."

Sandy smiles at him. "It wasn't you that made the bad impression," she says. "Do you have your phone with you?"

They exchange phones and Jared's just finished putting his number into Sandy's address book when Chad shows up. "That monk needed to find a virgin, all he had to do was get our boy Jay here," he says, his hand clapping down on Jared's shoulder.

Jared's going to die. He's going to die and he's pretty sure he's not imagining the amusement on the girls' faces and, God, he _hates_ it when girls laugh at him. Only one of Sandy's friends doesn't look like she's laughing at him, and that's because she's busy laughing at Adam's kung fu impressions.

"You're an unbelievable cock rag," says Sophia with a sigh.

"What?"

She shakes her head and grabs him by the ear. "Ow, ow!" he says, batting at her arm as she drags him away.

"Um, that was Chad," Jared says with a weak smile as he and Sandy switch phones back. "Another roommate."

"You just don't seem to have very good luck," Sandy says. Thank _God_ she doesn't say anything about the fact that Jared's a virgin. He really is going to die of embarrassment any minute.

"No, Chad's cool," Jared says.

Jensen coughs pointedly.

Jared shrugs. "Usually."

"Give me a call some time," Sandy says before she and her friends walk away.

"I'm going to kill myself," Jared says, shaking his head as he and Jensen head back to the dorms. "Or maybe I'll just drop dead from mortification."

"What?" asks Adam. "Hey, what happened? You got that girl's number, right?"

"Yeah," Jensen says. "Right before Chad decided to tell everybody Jared's a virgin."

"Not so loud," Jared snaps.

"It's not a big deal," Jensen tells him.

"It is kinda weird," Adam says. "I mean, yeah, OK, so I'm sure you're not the only one, but it's not like you're deformed or anything. And you're eighteen. It's..." He stops when he catches Jensen's glare. "It's totally normal and one day, you'll find the right girl."

Jared huffs and sulks the rest of the way back to the dorm.

"It's really not a big deal," Jensen says as Jared flops onto his bed. He knows he's being childish but he doesn't care.

"Easy for you to say. You probably lost your cherry when you were sixteen."

"Fifteen."

Jared groans and pulls his pillow over his face. Maybe if he presses down hard enough he can asphyxiate himself and never have to face Sandy again.

Jensen tugs the pillow away from him. "Seriously. Not a big deal."

"Why did he have to say it in front of _her_?" Jared whines.

"I'm guessing because he's a jackass."

"He's not a jackass."

"He just told the girl you're crushing on that you're a virgin."

Jared sighs. OK. So Chad's a jackass. He's also Jared's friend. "I just don't get why he did it."

"Um, jackass?"

"I'm not calling her."

"She told you to call her."

"She was being nice." Jared pulls the pillow off his face. "Right now, she and her friends are laughing at how pathetic I am."

"Right now, _I'm_ laughing at how pathetic you are."

"You said it wasn't a big deal!"

"It's not. You acting like this is what's pathetic. Come on. Get up."

Jared just looks at him.

"I mean it. We're going out."

"Where? It's almost two in the morning."

Jensen sighs and shakes his head. "You think you're the only friend I have? I'm taking you to a party."

"At two in the morning?"

"Their parties don't even start to get good until two and you're not pouting about this all night."

"I'm not pouting!"

Jensen raises one eyebrow.

"OK. I'm a pouting a little. Fine. Let's go."

"You got a car?" Jensen asks.

Jared shakes his head.

"Well, I'm parked in the C lot so it'll be a walk."

"I don't mind." Jared gets up and puts his coat back on. The winter's been pretty mild, in the 40s on average, but it's still colder than what he's used to in San Antonio.

The first ten minutes of the walk out to the far parking lot, Jared's silent and brooding about Sandy and what an idiot he is. After a while, though, it just starts to slip away. "Whose house are we going to?" he asks.

"One of my cousins."

"What's his name? Her name?"

"His. Chris." Jensen never really offers a lot of information.

"What's he do?"

"Plays in a band."

Jared stops. "He doesn't have a guitarist named Mark, does he?"

"Not that I'm aware of, no. Do I want to know why that would be bad?"

"Third roommate," Jared tells him. "He used to play _Stairway to Heaven_ twenty times in a row. I'm not even exaggerating. Over and over and over again. Finally, Chad just threw his amp out the window."

Jensen laughs at that. "Maybe Chad's not all bad."

"He's not. He's really not. You just got off on the wrong foot, him thinking you were retarded and all."

Jensen glances over at him with an amused grin. "He thought I was retarded?"

"Um. Mentally challenged? He apparently couldn't tell that you were just shy."

"I'm not shy," Jensen says defensively.

This time it's Jared's turn to raise a skeptical eyebrow. "Right. You couldn't even look at those girls tonight, let alone talk to them."

Jensen stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Shut up."

"There's nothing wrong with being shy. It's pretty damn cute."

"Cute? I'm mentally challenge and cute. Fantastic."

"Oh," says Jared. "I'm allowed to call things cute. It's a perk of being six-five." He explains his theory of undentable masculinity to Jensen, how he's totally allowed to call things cute and dance with his arms above his head and wear whatever the hell he damn well pleases. By the time they get to Jensen's truck, Jared's demonstrating his dorkiest dance moves and Jensen's laughing so hard he has to lean against the truck to catch his breath.

"You're a weird one, Jay," Jensen tells him, but his voice is warm and his smile is kind.

Once he's in the passenger seat, Jared raises his hands above his head and does a little dance move just to hear Jensen laugh again

"I'm not sure you should be allowed to have any beer, man."

"I deserve beer," Jared says, tapping out a rhythm on the dashboard. "I have had a very traumatic evening."

Jensen laughs softly and shakes his head, but doesn't argue. He drives them to the south end of town and once they get on the right street, Jared doesn't even have to ask which house they're going to. There are cars everywhere, music blaring, paper lanterns strung along the front porch and in the backyard.

There are so many people inside the small house that it almost seems alive.

"I'd introduce you around," Jensen shouts over the music and the noise, "but I think I've only met eight of these people before in my life."

"Don't worry about it," Jared tells him. "I know how to mingle." And he does. "Where's the beer?"

"Keg's tapped," says a guy in a tight t-shirt and a straw cowboy hat. He slings one arm around Jensen's shoulders. "Look at you, out on a school night."

"It's Friday," Jensen tells him.

The guy rolls his eyes. "You're so literal. That's your problem."

"My problem is that I'm sober and I just had to watch a movie where the monster was a watermelon. If the keg's tapped, what's plan B?"

"Jungle juice," the guy says with a smile. He flicks his eyes over to Jared. "Who's your friend?"

"Oh. Chris, my roommate, Jared. Jared, my cousin, Chris. My man Jay here is having woman troubles."

Chris sighs and shakes his head, moves to sling his other arm around Jared's shoulder. "Oblivion is this way, my friends." He leads them to the kitchen where there are huge plastic barrels full of a vaguely purple drink full of floating slices of fruit.

The first sip is terrible and burns most of the way down. Jared makes a face and Jensen laughs, claps him on the shoulder.

"What's in this?" Jared asks.

"I've never had the nerve to ask," Jensen admits. "You don't notice it after the second cup or so."

Jensen's right. By the second cup, the jungle juice tastes pretty good and Jared's having a fine time working the crowd, chatting with people he knows from classes, striking up conversations with complete strangers. By the third cup he's feeling no pain and is more than willing to join everybody else on the makeshift dance floor in the middle of the living room. After the fourth cup, he thinks maybe he has to throw up.

There are people gathered on the back patio, clustered around tall space heaters. Jared wanders around the side of the house where there's no one, finds a suitable bush, and throws up pretty much everything in his system. Afterwards, he feels much better.

"You all right?" Jensen's sitting on the back porch steps.

Jared nods.

Jensen hands him a plastic cup. "Drink this."

Jared does, then makes another face. "That was _water_."

"Yeah. I think you're gonna needs some more."

"I don't like water," Jared tells him.

"So that wasn't you I just heard puking his guts up a minute ago?"

Jared waves his hand dismissively. "Whatever. I'm fine." He sits on the steps next to Jensen, slumps against his shoulder. "This is a really fun party."

"Mmm-hmm."

"I didn't see you mingling."

"I don't mingle."

"You're so shy," Jared says with a smile, poking at Jensen's thigh.

"No, I just don't mingle."

"Shy," Jared says. "We make a good team."

"Oh, do we?"

"Yes. We're like, what's that word? Complementary. You should have been my roommate from the start. This year would have been a lot more fun."

"Your breath smells like puke," Jensen tells him.

Jared laughs and leans the other way, slumping against the stair railing. That's pretty much the last thing he remembers before waking up with his face pressed hard against linoleum, a pair of cowboy boots nudging at his shoulder.

"I thought we got rid of all the strays," says a voice from far above him.

"We did. That's Jensen's boy." He thinks he recognizes Jensen's cousin's voice even though he's hearing it through a long tunnel.

"Really."

"No, not...it's his _roommate_."

"Huh. This one better than the last?"

"Guess so."

Jared grunts and lifts his head. He's lying face-down on the kitchen floor.

"Don't puke on my floor," says the owner of the cowboy boots.

"'kay," says Jared. He lays his head back down and goes to sleep.

The next time he wakes up, Jensen's squatting down beside him. "Dude. Why are you on the floor?"

"'s comfortable," Jared mutters.

Jensen laughs softly. "You think you can get up? You in good enough shape to get home?"

"I'm fine," Jared says. He sits up and the world tilts, spins, tilts again. His entire brain is throbbing. "Oh, God," he moans.

"Told you you should have had more water."

"I'm gonna die," Jared groans.

"Come on." Jensen helps him up, puts his coat on him, helps him out to the truck. "You wanna sit in the front or lie down in the bed?"

"Lie down," Jared says. He climbs into the truck bed and lays his head on Jensen's spare tire. He lies there for a while, wonders where Jensen is. Then Jensen comes back and tucks a sleeping bag around him, says, "Try to puke over the edge if you have to."

"OK," says Jared. He doesn't puke, but he does feel every single turn and bump in the road. The cold air feels nice on his face, though, and he's nearly asleep again by the time Jensen pulls up in front of the dorm.

"You can't park here," Jared says as Jensen helps him out of the truck bed.

"I know."

"You're parked here. They'll tow you."

"I'm gonna move it as soon as I get you upstairs."

Jared smiles. Jensen parked illegally just for him. "You could have made me walk back from the lot with you."

"Not really," says Jensen. He grunts and shifts Jared's arm over his shoulder to get a better grip. "Come on, now. Lift your feet. You're too big for me to carry up these stairs."

Jared concentrates on lifting his feet for what seems like a very, very long time. Finally they make it up to the suite.

"You're a really good roommate," Jared says as Jensen rolls him into bed.

"Uh-huh." Jensen takes off his shoes, pulls him up to help him off with his coat.

"Way better than Phil or Randal or Mark or, um, the Nazi guy. I never learned his name. Is that bad of me? What if he was a nice guy?"

"The Nazi?" Jensen asks.

"You're right," Jared says. "Nazis are never nice. Hey, Jensen? I think I'm gonna puke."

Jensen dumps out the wastebasket and hands it to him, and Jared's throwing up again while Jensen goes out to move his truck.

Jared doesn't feel human again until Sunday morning. Even then, though, he can't eat much of a breakfast. He has cereal and toast but decides against eggs or meat even though he loves the omelets they make for Sunday brunch.

He sees Sandy on the way back from the dining hall. "Hi, Sandy," he says.

She looks over at him, shrugs, says, "Hey," and keeps walking.

When Jared gets back to the suite, he walks into Adam and Chad's room, carefully tugs the pillow from beneath Sophia's head and presses it over Chad's face.

"I think he has gills," Sophia mutters. "I've tried it before. It never works."

Chad wakes up after a moment, limbs flailing. "The fuck?" he asks when Jared pulls the pillow back. "I was sleeping."

"Next time you feel like telling a girl something--anything at all--about me. Don't."

"Does that mean you're not gonna be able to hook me up with Sandy's hot friend?" Adam asks from beneath the covers on the top bunk.

"Oh, my God," says Sophia. "Were you here the whole time?"

"I'm always here the whole time," Adam mumbles. "I've become immune to the porny sounds issuing from below. Also, I can't quite look Chad in the eye anymore after that whole tapered candle thing."

Sophia punches Chad in the arm. "You told me he sleeps over at his girlfriend's every night!"

"I did?" Chad asked.

"Yeah. No," says Adam. "I actually don't have a girlfriend." He flips the covers up off his head. "And I like to get a good eight, nine hours of sleep, it's good for your skin, so I'm generally already in bed by the time the two of you start your amateur porn hour."

"You are a dickwad," Sophia says, getting out of Chad's bed. She's not wearing anything but underwear and Jared swallows hard. He kind of forgets how to think whenever he sees breasts.

"What?" asks Chad. "Like you didn't know he was there. He snores!"

"Do not!"

"Like a chainsaw," Chad says.

Sophia pulls her sweater on and Jared's kind of disappointed. "That's me," she snaps. "I have a deviated septum."

"You snore like a chainsaw," Chad tells her.

"You're never fucking me again," Sophia says, snatching up her jeans and stalking out of the suite with her pants in one hand and her shoes in the other.

"I love that girl," says Chad.

Jared rolls his eyes. He still wants to kill Chad a little bit, but he figures if he waits long enough, somebody else will just do it for him.

Jensen's awake when Jared gets back to their room, though he's still in bed. He's got his laptop open and he yawns and says, "Morning," when Jared walks in.

"So, Sandy blew me off this morning," Jared says as he stretches out on his bed. He tucks his arms behind his head and stares up at the springs on the bottom of Jensen's bunk.

"You called her?"

"No. I saw her on the way back from breakfast. She couldn't get away from me fast enough. So then I came back and just tried to smother Chad, but it didn't work. That's probably for the best since I don't really want to go to jail. Anyway, it turns out that for the entire semester, Chad's been telling Sophia that Adam's not in the room while they're having sex, and you know how much Adam sleeps. Well, maybe you don't, but Adam sleeps a lot. He's usually in bed by ten-thirty or eleven, so he's been asleep by the time Chad and Sophia got back to the room. Sophia found out that Chad's been lying to her and she just...dude. She wasn't even wearing a shirt at first, and I kind of lost track of what she was saying after that. I know I shouldn't be perving on my friend's girlfriend, or maybe ex-girlfriend, now, but come on. It's not like I see half-naked women on a regular basis. Obviously. She has really nice breasts."

Jensen chuckles and Jared hears the soft _snick_ of his laptop closing.

"She totally ignored me," he says with a sigh.

"Sophia?"

"No. Sandy. I said hi and she barely acknowledged me. How am I supposed to ever lose my virginity if the fact that I still have it makes girls treat me like a leper?"

"Christ. You're not a leper and you're hardly the only guy who hasn't had sex, yet. So you didn't bang skanky girls in high school and get warts on your dick, so what?"

"Then why did she blow me off?"

"I don't know. She seemed interested Friday night. Maybe she was in a hurry to get somewhere and couldn't stop to talk."

Jared sighs. "You and your logic. I don't know why I'm even worried about it because even if she is interested, which she's not, we're leaving in, like, a week. Which reminds me that I have to call my parents and see if they can pick me up or if I have to take the bus."

"You're parents are driving all the way up from San Antonio?"

"I hate to ask them, but I hate the bus more, and plane tickets are ridiculous over Christmas."

"I can take you as far as Dallas," Jensen tells him.

"Really?"

"I'm going there, anyway. It'd be stupid for us not to ride together."

Jared can't help the stupid grin that spreads over his face. He lifts his leg up and nudges the underside of Jensen's mattress with his foot. "You really are the best roommate ever."

"Are you going to start singing _Kum Ba Yah_? Because I'm not down with that."

"I was thinking of a couple verses of Dionne Warwick's _That's What Friends are For_ ," Jared teases.

"Oh. Well, that's all right then."

And just because he knows it's dorky and will make Jensen laugh, Jared takes a deep breath and begins to sing, _Keep smilin', keep shinin', knowing you can always count on me for sure, that's what friends are for..._


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared has a date, and then he doesn't.

During finals week, Jared discovers something about himself. Jared discovers that he hates finals. Hates them with a passion. Hates them more than he knew he could actually hate something.

Jensen's smug every time he whines. "You're not even cramming!" Jared cries while desperately trying to remember the name of the guy the French sent to that island for treason who probably actually didn't do anything. "Why aren't you cramming?"

"I do this thing where I learn what I need to know the first time around," Jensen tells him. "You should try it."

"I hate you," says Jared. When he finally climbs out of his books four days later, he's exhausted and silly from it. He takes great joy in jumping up and down on his pre-calc textbook.

"Don't you need that for next semester?" Jensen asks.

"I'm being _symbolic_." Jared picks the book up and puts it back on the shelf above his desk.

"You ready to head to Chris' for a beer?"

"Yes. But just one. And no jungle juice." Jared puts his hand to his stomach. "God, just thinking about it hurts."

"No jungle juice," Jensen says with a laugh, picking up his keys.

Adam shoves open the door to their room without knocking. His eyes are wild. "Dude, we have dates tonight."

"What?" Jared asked.

"I just saw Rachel, that hot chick from the other night? Anyway, we were talking and I was making fun of you for not calling Sandy and she was making fun of Sandy for not calling you and we had a stroke of genius, which is that we're all four going out. And I don't think it'll work if you puss out and I really, really want to go out with this girl, so...yeah. Get dressed."

Jared looks down at his sweatshirt and jeans. "I am dressed."

"He means dressed for a date," Jensen tells him.

"What? Now? Right now?"

"You're leaving tomorrow," Adam reminds him. "When else would we go? Rachel has a car, we're meeting them at their dorm in half an hour."

"But I...Jensen and I were--"

Adam actually gets down on his knees. "This girl is a goddess, Jay. She's gorgeous and smart and when she laughs it's in the _oh, you're so funny and charming_ way and not in the usual _you're a freak_ way, so please, I'm begging you--"

"Go out with Sandy," Jensen says.

"But we had plans," Jared says. He's torn. He wants to go out with Sandy, he really, really wants to go out with Sandy, but he also doesn't one to be one of those guys who ditches his friends every time something better comes along.

"Hell," says Jensen. "Bring her to the party if you want, but seriously, man, go out with her. I'm gonna make fun of you forever if you don't."

Jared grins and pulls him into a hug.

"You're hugging me," Jensen says.

"Yes, I am."

"Stop hugging me."

"Aww," says Adam, getting to his feet. "I want in on some of this action." He wraps his arms around Jared and Jensen from the side.

"You're both hugging me."

"You can take it," Adam tells him, petting his hair.

"You both need to stop hugging me."

"You like it," says Jared, squeezing him tighter.

Jensen eventually twists and pulls away, but he's laughing. "You're freaks. Both of you."

Adam digs in Jared's closet and pulls out a dark green sweater. "Wear this," he says. "It brings out your eyes."

Jared looks over at Jensen.

"Don't look at me," says Jensen.

"I was raised by women," Adam tells them. "These things sink in."

Jared pulls on the sweater and sighs, rubs his hands on his jeans.

"You should also probably brush your teeth," Jensen tells him. "Unless you think she's into Funyun breath."

"Oh, God," says Jared. "I haven't been on a date since high school."

"That was only six months ago." Jensen claps him on the shoulder. "I think you can handle it."

Jared sighs again and goes to brush his teeth.

Rachel and Sandy are waiting in front of their dorm. Rachel's swinging her keys in her hand and Sandy's bundled up in a pale pink parka with a fluffy pink hat. She smiles and waves shyly, fluffy pink mittens covering her hands. "Hi," she says.

Jared stops and stuffs his hands in his pockets. "Hi," he says.

"Freezing," says Rachel. "Let's go."

They go to the Olive Garden and Jared makes sure not to order anything that will drip down his chin. Adam dominates the conversation, doing impressions and telling jokes and it's a relief, really, because usually Jared's the one being a spaz. He likes being able to pretend that he's the type of guy who can play it cool.

Sandy's from California so they talk about how cold it is for a while. It's lame, but at least it's something. When Sandy took off her parka it turned out she was wearing a top with a very low-cut v-neck and mostly, Jared's trying not to stare at her truly amazing rack.

Sandy eats two helpings of salad, an entire plate of lasagna, and a bunch of bread sticks. That's nice, too. Jared likes girls who eat, though he knows enough not to say it. Girls don't really like it when you call attention to their eating habits, even if you mean it as a compliment.

On the walk out to the car, Jared says, "Some friends of mine are having a party if you wanna go." It's not entirely true, but Jensen _had_ said they could come.

Sandy looks at Rachel, who shrugs and says, "Yeah, ok."

"Awesome," Adam whispers in Jared's ear. "Shotgun!"

Jared sits in the back with Sandy, gives Rachel directions to Chris' house. He mostly remembers how to get there and he knows that once they get on the right street, it'll be obvious.

"You're kind of crushed," Sandy says.

"Oh." Jared shrugs. He doesn't have much legroom, but he's used to it. "It's OK."

"You can stretch out over this way if you want."

"I'm fine."

Sandy's silent for a moment, then she leans forward. "I kind of have garlic breath," she whispers.

Jared's stomach flips. "Me, too," he says, and he leans down and presses his lips against hers. He doesn't even notice the garlic on her breath, hopes she doesn't notice it on his. He cups her face in his hands and shifts to get a better angle. Her lips part under his and, yeah, fuck, he'd missed this. He hasn't kissed a girl in months, and Sandy's mouth fits so perfectly against his.

She lays one of her small hands on his legs, rubs it up and down his thigh and God, God, all his blood is rushing to his cock. She smells so good, like soap and flowery perfume and breadsticks, and her hand's rubbing up and down the inside of his thigh.

"You never called me," she whispers against his mouth when they part.

"Uh..." He can't really think. Hand on thigh. There is a girl's hand _on his thigh_. "I didn't know if you wanted me to, after what Chad told you."

"I don't care about that," she says. "Did you really think I'd care about that?"

"I don't know. I didn't know."

She nips at his lower lip and, Christ, he's so hard it's almost painful.

"That totally doesn't matter, like, at all," she tells him.

"OK." He kisses her again, strokes his thumb along her cheekbone and Sandy strokes her fingers along the inseam of his jeans and--

"You had better not be getting fluids on the back seat of my car," Rachel says sharply. "Both of you."

Sandy pulls back, laughing softly, and Jared can feel himself blush. He leans back in his seat and lays his hands in his lap.

"What's the name of the street again?" Rachel asks.

"I have no idea, but it's up here on the left in a few blocks," Jared says and he tries to distract himself from the way Sandy had felt against him by concentrating on the directions.

They get to the party and once again, there are cars lining the street and music blaring.

Jared's only half-hard by the time they walk into the party, but he's still glad his sweater hangs down low enough to cover his bulge. "You want a beer?" he asks Sandy. "I don't recommend the jungle juice."

"Yeah," she says, rubbing his arm. "A beer would be good."

"I'll be right back," he says. He makes his way through the house, hopes the keg isn't out, smiles when he sees that Jensen's the one manning it.

"Jay!" Jensen cries. "Everybody, this is my man Jared. Jared, everybody. How are you man? You good? How was your date?"

Jared smiles. He's never seen Jensen drunk before and it's kind of nice to see him out of his shell. "I'm good," he says. "Can I get two beers?"

Jensen leans a little bit to look out into the party as he hands Jared the next beer, completely ignoring the other people in line. "She here?"

"Hey," says a guy, "that was mine. I paid for that cup."

"Keep your panties on," says Jensen, pouring another beer for Jared. "Jared has a very, very hot girl that he just went on a date with to..."

"Olive Garden," Jared says.

Jensen sighs and shakes his head. "Really?"

"I like the Olive Garden. Besides, the girls picked it."

"The Olive Garden's lame," Jensen says.

"Come on," says Jared. "Come say hi."

"Yeah, all right." Jensen moves with a loose-limbed, easy grace. He looks at the guy who'd complained. "You're in charge now, buddy. Watch the foam."

"She's, God, she's _awesome_ ," Jared says as he and Jensen battle their way through the crowd. "We totally made out on the way here and--" He stops dead.

Sandy's twisting and grinding with some guy on the dance floor, her leg slung around his waist as he dips her.

Jared frowns. He must be missing something. He sets the beers down on an end table shoved up against the wall and heads towards Sandy. "Hey," he says, placing his hand on her shoulder.

Sandy looks back at him, rolls her eyes, and says, "Whatever." She drapes her arms around the other guy's neck and, well, fuck. Jared stalks back to the end table, slams one of the beers and is about to slam the other when he feels Jensen's hand on his arm.

"She's not worth it," Jensen tells him, taking the beer from his hands.

"She...I just...and then she!" Jared sputters.

"I know. I saw. Come on." Jensen hustles him through the party and down a dark hall. He fishes his keys out of his pocket and undoes a padlock on one of the doors.

From the padlock, you'd think whatever was behind the door would be top secret or something, but it's not. It's just a regular bedroom with a bare mattress in the center and a guitar in the corner and some boxes shoved off to one side.

"I keep some of my stuff here," Jensen tells him, hanging the padlock on a hook inside the door. "I don't trust most of Chris' friends."

From what Jared's seen, he thinks that's probably a good idea. He stalks to one end of the room, runs his fingers through his hair, stalks back towards the door. "What did I do?" he asks. "We hit it off, I thought we hit it off!"

"I don't know," says Jensen. He leans against the wall and laughs softly and admits, "I'm a little buzzed. I don't know what to tell you, man. She seemed into you after the movie. Maybe she has a twin."

"She doesn't have a twin, she was just being nice until she could ditch me. Fuck! I need another beer."

"You really don't. Remember last time?"

"That wasn't beer!"

"That was you barfing for two days. Check this out. Chris pimped out every bedroom in the house with this." Jensen flips off the overhead light, flips another switch and the walls and ceiling are covered with moving lights like at a planetarium.

"Huh," says Jared. He's not sure if it's cool or if it's making his stomach hurt. He sits on the edge of the bed, flops down so that his back's on the mattress, his feet on the floor. "He did this to every room?"

Jensen laughs softly and flops down next to him. "Yeah. He's not really into subtlety."

They stare up at the slow-moving points of light on the ceiling, changing color from white to yellow to green to blue.

"I really liked her," Jared says after a while.

"I know, man."

"Her _hand_ was on my _thigh_."

Jensen laughs softly.

"I don't understand girls."

"Who does?"

"Sometimes? I think everyone but me. I'm never going to get laid."

Jensen laughs again and shakes his head. "Of course you will."

"No. I won't. I'm just going to, God, explode or something from sexual tension and when people ask how I died? You're going to have to tell them, 'Virginity.'"

"You're so overreacting. Wow. Are the lights making you spin or is it just me?"

"They're a little distracting. Fuck. Her _hand_ was on my _thigh_ and she was just...kissing me. She started it, she kissed me _first_ and now she's...God. Probably sleeping with that guy who's probably slept with, like, a hundred girls already and I really, really hate my life."

"Don't worry about it," Jensen whispers, and Jared's not quite sure what he's not supposed to be worried about until he feels Jensen's hand slip between his legs. He startles, sits halfway up.

Jensen places his hand on Jared's stomach, rubs gently, eases him back down. "It's all right," he says, and then he's on his knees between Jared's legs, mouthing Jared's cock through his jeans.

Jared groans, arches up towards the contact. He should stop it, he knows he should stop it, but he was half-hard to begin with and then Jensen tugs his fly open and his hot, wet mouth closes around Jared's cock and that's it. He can't think anymore, can't even remember his name let alone the fact that he really shouldn't be letting his roommate blow him.

He bucks up into Jensen's mouth and Jensen chokes a bit.

"Sorry, sorry," Jared gasps.

Jensen just leans forward, pins Jared's hips to the bed with his forearms, and starts to suck him again.

Jared's never, never felt anything like it in his life. Sure, he knew it was supposed to be good but, Christ, Jensen's mouth is so hot, so wet, so slippery soft inside. When Jensen starts flicking his tongue against the underside of his cock, Jared wants to scream. He bites his fist, instead, squeezes his eyes shut, tries not to come right fucking then.

Jensen shifts, drapes one arm across Jared's hips to hold him down, slides the other hand down and cups Jared's balls and yeah, Christ, Jared throws his arms up above his head, grips the edge of the bed tight and twists his head to the side. He bites his lip to keep from moaning and when that doesn't work, he clenches his teeth and presses his face against his arm.

Then Jensen switches, his hand on Jared's cock, his tongue lapping at Jared's balls, which is just...God. So, so good.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck," Jared gasps. "Now. Fuck, Jen, I'm gonna--" Jensen lifts his head, closes his mouth around the head of Jared's cock and swallows and, Christ, that's so hot it makes Jared want to come all over again.

The swirling lights on the ceiling make him slightly dizzy, and that plus the beer plus the orgasm make him close his eyes and he wants to stay awake to figure out what the hell just happened, but sleep is far too sweet and he slips into it, Jensen's mouth still gentle around his cock.

The drive back to Texas the next day is slightly awkward.

In the morning, Jared had woken up alone, wandered out into Chris' house to find Jensen sitting on the back steps smoking a cigarette.

"I didn't know you smoked," he said softly.

Jensen had looked back at him, shrugged, said, "I don't. You ready to head back? I figure we should get on the road by noon at the latest."

Jared had just nodded and that had been it. Jensen acted like nothing had happened and, OK, maybe that was for the best. Maybe Jared should just forget about it. Except, Jensen had sucked his cock, and he was pretty sure he couldn't forget that, oh, ever.

Jared had been packed days in advance. He'd even made a couple different road trip playlists for his iPod, but he leaves it in his backpack. He doesn't think his playlist of songs like _That's What Friends are For_ and _Thank You for Being a Friend_ and _You've got a Friend_ will be quite as funny the morning after a blowjob.

Jensen, for his part, is acting totally normal. Sure he's quiet and not saying much, just watching the road as he drives and drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, but that's what Jensen would be doing _anyway_ , even if he hadn't, you know, _sucked_ Jared's _cock_.

Jared's having a hard time getting over the whole _my best friend just sucked my cock_ thing.

Maybe he's just crazy. Maybe he imagined it. He knows that's not true. He knows it happened. Maybe it was just...a thing. One of those crazy college things he'd heard about growing up. People do weird stuff in college. Everybody says so.

He should say something. He really should say something. He doesn't have a clue where to start, though. He stares out the window and tries to think of what to say or if he should say anything and after two or three hours of that he's queasy and sort of losing his mind, so what comes out is, "Oh my God, did you _seduce_ me?"

Jensen chokes on his Diet Coke and coughs for a good mile and a half.

"You did, didn't you? With the, the room and the fucking swirling lights and...you planned that!"

Jensen coughs some more, puts his soda can in the cup holder, and wipes Diet Coke off his t-shirt. "I didn't," he says softly. "I didn’t plan it. I just, when I'm drunk, sometimes I get a little..."

"Gay?" Jared demands.

"No, I'm gay even when I'm sober."

Jared frowns. "Oh."

"Look..." Jensen sighs. He rubs the back of his neck. "I just...I never know how to say it without making it into this big deal, and it's not, not really, just..."

"Just sometimes you blow your friends?"

Jensen groans and doesn't say anything.

Jared crosses his arms over his chest and stares out the passenger window. If Jensen doesn't want to talk about it, then fine. They won't talk about it. He can stay quiet. He can be quiet the entire fucking way to Dallas if he has to.

Jared actually can't stay quiet for that long, which he knows, so he's thankful when Jensen pulls off into a rest stop because that at least gives him an excuse to say _something_.

He doesn't get a chance to say anything, though, because Jensen jerks into a parking spot and rips his keys out of the ignition and kicks the driver's side door open even before the truck's come to a complete stop. Jensen walks off to the side where people walk their dogs, and he just keeps walking until he's as far as he can go, where there's nothing but a curb and a tiny strip of dead grass.

Jared locks the truck and watches Jensen walk. He stands by the truck for a few minutes, then when it become apparent that Jensen's not coming back any time soon, he follows.

"Jensen?" he asks softly.

"Give me a minute." Jensen's voice is thick, like maybe he's trying not to cry. And, yeah, Jared's a little uncomfortable and confused, but Jensen looks like he's actually in pain. He sits on the curb and pulls his knees to his chest, hunches in on himself like he wants to disappear. He's shivering.

"It's not a big deal," Jared says, sitting next to him. He doesn't know if it's true or not, but he doesn't want it to be a big deal. He doesn't want to see Jensen so fucking unhappy.

Jensen shakes his head. "I fucked up," he whispers, his voice shaky. "I know I fucked up and I don't...I don't know how to take it back, make it better, and you really are the best friend I've got and I had to go and fuck that up and...fuck." He drops his head down and his shoulders shake a little bit as he fights back tears.

Jared sighs. He's such an asshole. He's spent the whole day frustrated that Jensen was being so goddamn casual about it, when really he was ripping himself up inside. "I don't care that you're gay," Jared tells him, and that is true.

Jensen laughs softly, shakes his head.

"I mean it. I don't...I've never had a gay friend before, so if I fuck up, you can tell me."

"If _you_ fuck up?" Jensen asks, lifting his head.

"Yeah. I mean, if I'm insensitive or say something wrong or whatever."

"How can you...? After what I did, man, I don't expect you to..."

Jared leans and bumps Jensen's shoulder with his own. "Yeah, OK," he says. "I have to admit. There are few things in this world as terrible as a blowjob. I mean, really, orgasms? Not fun. But I got through it and I think with some therapy the nightmares will probably become bearable."

"You're," says Jensen. "I...I don't even..."

"My mama always taught me that most things happen for a reason," Jared tells him, "and that it's usually to teach you how to be a better person."

"You're so freakin' nice all the time," Jensen says. "How has the world not eaten you alive?"

"Because I can crush most people's throats one handed. Not that I would."

Jensen lays his head back down on his knees.

"I could sing if you want."

Jensen laughs and groans at the same time. "Please don't."

"You sure? I've got a whole friendship playlist on my iPod. I could sing you selections from it. It might make you feel better."

Jensen laughs for real, then, and looks up at Jared with this totally open look of wonder and gratitude and Jared can't help but smile at him. So, OK, he's got a gay best friend that maybe doesn't exercise the best judgment when he's drunk. So what? Jared's still friends with Chad, and Chad doesn't exercise any sort of judgment ever.

"You sure you don't want me to sing?" he asks.

"I'm sure."

Jared gets up and offers Jensen his hand. "All right, but it's your loss."

The rest of the drive is a lot less awkward, and Jared does sing a little bit but Jensen doesn't seem to mind. It's not like Jared can help it, really. _Lean On Me_ just has a really catchy chorus, and halfway through Oklahoma, Jensen laughs and opens his mouth and just gives in and sings along.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Christmas break interlude. A 6,000-word interlude. What?

After a week of sleeping late, hanging out with old friends that he doesn't have much in common with anymore, and eating his mama's cooking, Jared's a little bored. He texts Jensen. _I'm bored._

He doesn't get a response right away and sits on the couch with his feet up on the coffee table, flipping through channel after channel without even really watching anything.

His phone beeps and he picks it up. Jensen's texted him back. _my family makes me want to kill myself_

Jared laughs. _it's down the block not across the street_.

 _thanks for your support_

 _any time_

He settles on a cooking show and watches for a while. It makes him hungry for bruschetta and he thinks it looks easy enough that even he could make it. He's too lazy to actually look and see if they have things like fresh tomatoes in the kitchen, though, and going to the store would mean having to shower, so he just sits on the couch and gets hungrier.

 _I want bruschetta_ he texts Jensen.

 _I want a world where soft rock is a crime_ Jensen texts back.

Jared laughs and shakes his head. He scrolls through his address book, finds Jensen's number and hits _Send_.

"Seriously," is what Jensen says when he answers the phone. " _Islands in the Stream_ is just wrong."

"Kenny Rogers is never wrong," Jared says.

"I think _Buy Me a Rose_ proves otherwise."

"You're wounding me here," Jared says. He starts to croon, "Buy me a rose, call me from work, open a door for me, what would it hurt?" He's a little impressed that he actually remembers the words.

"Did you call me just to torture me with your singing?"

"How can you hate a song about all the little things that show you love somebody?"

"Because it sucks."

Jared laughs and turns off the TV. He stretches out on the couch. "Next you're going to tell me you hate Alabama."

Jensen groans. "Seriously, man, we have to improve your taste in music."

"Alabama!" Jared cries. "Play me that mountain music!"

"Yeah," Jensen says grudgingly. "Yeah, OK, that's a good song, but I'm burning all your Trace Adkins CDs when we get back to school."

"What? Why?"

"Because if I have to hear _Honky Tonk Badonkadonk_ one more time I'm going to kill myself."

"You've been suicidal all day."

"Four hours of church will do that to a person."

"Four hours?" Jared asks. "What do you do at church for four hours?"

"Mostly sit there with my ass falling asleep. But on the upside, I now know in detail what the Bible says about magic and why it's bad."

"Huh." Jared's mama goes to Aldersgate United Methodist most Sundays, but Jared hasn't gone more than twice a year since he was confirmed. "What kind of church is it? I mean, are they OK with you being...um, gay?"

"Not really, no. But I'm not...I'm not really out. It's...my family...it's kind of complicated."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Not especially."

"OK. I was watching cooking shows on TV and I'm starving."

"When aren't you starving?"

"I'm a growing boy," Jared says defensively.

Jared's missed the sound of Jensen's laugh. "You're already a giant."

"I can't help that I have good genes. Seriously, they were making this bruschetta with, um, that pork, that really salty pork that you slice thin?"

"Prosciutto," says Jensen.

"Yeah! That! It was, like, toasted bread and garlic and tomatoes and, God, I'm _starving_."

"Go make yourself something to eat."

"I don't wanna get up."

"So lie there and die of starvation."

Jared sighs and levers himself up off the couch. He chatters on as he digs through the kitchen looking for ingredients. They have fresh tomatoes but not fresh garlic or basil. They have sliced bread but not French bread. Jared makes do, drizzles olive oil on the slices and sprinkles them with garlic salt and Parmesan cheese from a can before putting them in the oven.

He chops up the tomatoes and onions as he tells Jensen all about his little sister's new boyfriend. "...so my dad was like, 'OK, just don't say anything, either one of you,' so Jeff and me and my dad are sitting there in the living room with this kid, all of us just looking at him, none of us saying anything, and you could practically see the kid's panic rising--"

"You're fucking cruel," Jensen tells him.

"It was hilarious. I had to dig my nails into my palm to keep from laughing. Dakota--that's the kid's name, Dakota--he kept trying to make conversation and my dad would, like, grunt or give him one-word answers. Once he and Megan left, we laughed so hard I could barely breathe."

When he eats his makeshift bruschetta, it's so good and just what he was craving that he can't help but groan.

"You sound like you're in a food porn," Jensen tells him. "Which is remarkably unsexy."

"Have you seen a food porn?" Jared asks between bites.

"Just one. It was really messy. I couldn't figure out how they could get so turned on when they were getting, like, blueberry pie on the couch. You know that's going to stain."

Jared laughs loud and tells Jensen about the first porn he ever saw, a VHS tape swiped by one of his friends from an uncle. It was called _Edward Penishands_. "I swear," he says, grinning at Jensen's breathless laughter. "The guy had prosthetic cocks, like, taped over his hands and they were so fucking veined it was ridiculous. I may still be emotionally scarred."

After his afternoon snack, Jared goes back to the couch. He stares at the ceiling as he and Jensen talk about TV and movies and how seriously bad _Revenge of the Sith_ sucked. When his family gets home from the mall, Jared waves at them and heads to his room, locking the door behind him.

"I can't handle the mall at Christmas," he admits. "I start wanting to punch people--like old ladies and infants and people in wheelchairs."

"Really? For some reason I pegged you as a shopping kind of guy."

"Normally I don't mind it, but this time of the year, I don't know, I think it's all those Christmas carols playing over and over again."

"Yeah. There's only so many times you can hear _Feliz Navidad_ before you snap."

There's a sharp rap on Jared's door and then Megan's voice. "Are you talking to your girlfriend?" she demands in a loud sing-song.

Jared sighs. "My sister is five years old emotionally," he tells Jensen.

"Makes sense, since you're eight."

He laughs and goes over to the door where Megan's knocking incessantly. He yanks the door open and she grins at him. "Talking to your girlfriend, huh?" she asks.

"Maybe I'm talking to my boyfriend," he says. "You ever think of that?" He works hard to keep from smiling.

Megan shakes her head and says, "Oh," and then he laughs and shuts the door on her.

"Dude," says Jensen, "you just told your sister you were gay."

"No, I told her to consider the fact that I might be talking to a boyfriend instead of a girlfriend."

"And when she runs to your parents and tells them?"

"She won't. And even if she did, it wouldn't be a big deal."

"Huh," says Jensen. "Hey, we've been talking for hours and I think my ear might fall off. I'm gonna go get ready for dinner."

"Yeah," says Jared. "OK. Talk to you later, man." After he hangs up he sees that his phone is very close to dead so he plugs it in before wandering back out into the house to see what everyone else is doing.

Megan's sitting in the hall with her knees pulled up to her chest. She pops to her feet as soon as she sees Jared come out of his room.

"It was a _joke_ , Meggie," he says as she opens her mouth to speak. "God."

"Don't call me that," she says, punching him on the arm. She punches him as hard as she can but it doesn't really hurt.

"Meggie," he repeats. He leans down quick and puts his shoulder to her stomach, grabs her arms and stands up so that she's draped over him in a fireman carry.

"Put me down you big jerk!" she cries, but she's laughing. "Mama! Make JT put me down!"

Jared walks down the hallway into the family room where his dad and Jeff are watching TV. His mother peeks in from the kitchen and sighs, a dishtowel in her hand.

"JT, put your sister down," she says with an exasperated smile.

"Catch," he says and flips Megan over, tosses her towards the couch where Jeff's sitting.

"JT has a girlfriend!" Megan crows as she pushes herself out of Jeff's lap and onto her own couch cushion.

"I actually don't," he says as he takes a seat in one of the armchairs.

"Then who were you on the phone with?"

"Jensen. My roommate."

"Oh, he's a nice boy," says Jared's mama. She's only met him once, when they transferred Jared's suitcases from Jensen's truck to the family van, but Jensen had been unfailingly polite, full of _yes, ma'am_ s and _that's right kind of you_ s, and Jared's mama has always appreciated polite.

"Is he cute?" Megan asks.

"Cuter than any guy you'll ever date," he says

"Mama!" Megan cries, snatching off her shoe and throwing it at Jared's face.

"Megan!" Jared's mama snaps. "JT!" she cries when he throws the shoe back at Megan. "Both of you, stop it!"

Megan springs forward, catching him off guard and knocking him and the armchair to the ground. Growing up with two older brothers has made her both tough and sneaky.

Jared howls with surprised laughter as he hits the ground. Megan's sneaky but she's not very strong, so not even her hardest punches hurt much except, oh, "Not the stomach!" he cries, pushing her off him easily.

Megan jumps back onto him, straddles his stomach and presses as hard as she can on his shoulders in an attempt to hold him down. "Is Jensen your _boyfriend_?" she asks in her most annoying tone. "He is, isn't he? JT has a boyfriend, JT has a boyfriend," she sing-songs. Sometimes, she really is five.

"Megan Padalecki you stop that this instant," their mama snaps. She yanks Megan right up by the ponytail. "That is no way to talk about your own brother."

"But--" Megan begins.

"I mean it. There's joking and then there's taking a joke too far, and that's nothing to joke about."

Jared winces. That sort of took the fun out of everything. He slides off the armchair, then lifts it back onto its feet before sitting in it again and waiting for supper.

The next day is Christmas Eve, which means driving from one grandparents' house to another. There are only so many hands of Kings in the Corner Jared can play before he wants to start banging his head against the wall.

He texts Chad. _Christmas eve sucks_

He doesn't get a response.

He texts Adam. _Christmas eve sucks_

Adam texts him back. _hpy Hanukkah, btch_

He texts Jensen. _Christmas eve sucks_

Jensen texts back. _my cousins are playing bible verse trivia_

 _I really hope that's a made up game_

 _I so wish it were._

 _how do you play?_

His phone rings a second later and he excuses himself to the spare bedroom to take the call. "Jensen?"

"OK," says Jensen, "this is how you play. One person flips through the Bible, finds a passage, tells you the book, chapter, and verse number, and whoever can say the verse gets a point."

Jared's silent for a moment. "And they play that for fun?"

"This is what I'm saying. What are you doing?"

"Hiding out in my grandma's spare room and avoiding another game of cards."

Jensen chuckles. "Heathens."

"I'll probably emerge once they switch to canasta."

Jensen snorts a laugh. "People still play canasta?"

"Dude, my grandma's cutthroat. When we're melding 120, if she can go out before anybody else has even laid down a card, she totally will."

"I'll just pretend I know what that means."

"OK. And, God, if one more person asks me what I'm majoring in I'm going to scream. How am I supposed to know what I want to major in? How the hell did you know you wanted to be a physical therapist?"

"I played some ball in high school, blew out my knee, needed physical therapy for it. It just seemed like a cool thing, I guess."

"That's a lot of school though, right? I mean, you have to go to grad school."

"Yeah."

Jared sighs and sits on the floor, leans back against the bed and it's crocheted coverlet. His grandma's house always smells weird, kind of stale and powdery. He doesn't know why he finds it comforting. "I don't think I want to go to grad school," he says. "I don't think I want to major in _anything_. I just...I don't know. Graduating and getting a job and working every day for the rest of my life, that's just...man. I'm depressing myself."

"It's the holidays. More people kill themselves at Christmas than at any other time of the year."

"Well, I'm not that depressed."

"Thank God. And seriously, Jay, you're a freshman. You don't have to decide what you're majoring in right away. You'll find it."

"I suppose," Jared says, picking at a tuft of shag carpeting next to his knee.

After a little while, Jensen lets out a weary sigh and says, "OK. Fine. Do it."

"Do what?" Jared asks.

"Sing to me. You know you want to."

He laughs.

"It's bubbling around in there, I know it. You've got some horrible pop gem just aching to burst free, so go for it."

Jared smiles and skims his palm over the tips of the carpet. "Well, now I'm on the spot."

"Come on. Sing me a song," Jensen prods. "How often am I actually willing to listen to you sing? You may never get this chance again."

Jared laughs. "No. That's OK. I'll save it for later."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I should get back."

"Merry Christmas, Jay."

"Merry Christmas," Jared says.

Jared goes back to where his family's gathered and he and his grandmother pair up and kick some major canasta ass. He misses school and it's strange to be homesick for someplace that's not really home.

He can't sleep that night. He still feels sort of strange and melancholy, still misses his friends and wishes he were back with them even as he never wants to leave home. He tries thinking about all the presents he's going to get in the morning, tries to think about how much fun it will be to watch his family open the gifts he picked out.

He still can't sleep, so he slips out of his clothes and stretches out naked on top of his covers, slides his hands across his stomach and down between his legs.

His old fantasy standby, Julie Williams jerking him off on prom night, doesn't do much for him. He closes his eyes and thinks about it, remembers the smell of her perfume, remembers the way she'd kissed his neck over and over as she stroked him. It's not much more than a memory and the heat it provokes is merely lukewarm.

He sighs. He supposes he could try to go to sleep again, but now that he's started it, he wants to jerk off, wants to feel good, wants to come. The memory of Sandy's brush-off still stings but, Christ, her hand on his leg, rubbing up his thigh, her tongue in his mouth, that's better. He squeezes his cock, rubs his thumb over the slit, smiles as heat pools in his belly and his cock begins to grow.

He thinks about Sandy jerking him off instead of Julie. He imagines her small hand slipping between his legs right there in the car with Adam and Rachel in the front, imagines her kissing him, biting at his jaw, stroking him fast and hard.

He thinks about touching her, about sliding her skirt up and feeling how wet she is, slipping his fingers over her clit, making her gasp and moan. He thinks about her kissing him, kissing his neck, kissing her way down his chest and sliding down on the seat so she can take his cock into her mouth.

That's good. That's really good. His cock's so hard thinking about it, thinking about Jensen--no. Thinking about _Sandy_. He's thinking about Sandy sucking him off. Her pretty little mouth wrapped around him, her dark eyes gazing up at him, her...fuck.

Fuck. Jensen. He's shoving his cock into Jensen's mouth and Jensen's taking it, all of it, sucking him so fucking good, his mouth so hot inside, his tongue doing fucking amazing things. Jared might be a little bit in love with Jensen's tongue, with his pretty, fuckable mouth, with the way he'd moaned in pleasure just from sucking Jared, with the way Jared had felt the vibrations of that moan all through his body.

He's fucking Jensen's mouth and Jensen's looking up at him, grin in his eyes, wanting it so bad, wanting Jared's cock, wanting--fuck. Fuck, wanting Jared to come in his mouth and Jesus, Jesus that's it. Jared's coming hard in spurts across his belly thinking of the way Jensen had looked swallowing his come.

He comes so hard he's a little shaky and he slides his fingers through the come on his skin, laughing softly. Coming hard always makes him laugh a little bit, and that was the best orgasm he's had in a long time. He rolls onto his side and stretches out and sighs and floats in a post-orgasm haze.

Then he blinks and sits up and...huh. That was weird.

He reaches for the Kleenex on the nightstand, and cleans himself up. That was...OK. OK, so he just jerked off thinking about his roommate. It happens. He thinks it probably happens. It probably happens a lot if somebody's roommate had just given them their very first blowjob ever. It's not that weird. He's pretty sure it's not that weird.

He gets up and pulls on pajama bottoms and a t-shirt, pads down the hall to the bathroom where he cleans up a little better and splashes water on his face.

He looks at his reflection in the mirror. It's not like he looks any different. It's not like he would, he knows. It's not like he has to walk around with a neon sign flashing _I Have Gay Thoughts._ He's just...OK. He's being a hypocrite is what he's doing. He's totally OK with Jensen being all the way gay, so he should be OK if he himself has fleeting kinda gay thoughts. He's fine. It's normal. His junior high gym teacher said so during sex ed, said that sometimes a guy will think about another guy and that it didn't make you gay.

He's fine. He's normal. He's...really kind of hungry.

He's quiet as he slips out of the bathroom and into the hallway and he smiles when he sees that the floor around the tree is filled with presents his mama had put out after he'd gone to bed. He doesn't have to look to know that each of them will have "From: Santa Claus" written on the tag in his mama's handwriting.

The Christmas cookies had been rolling in--gifts from his mother's students and his father's coworkers--even before he got home, plates full of kringle and raspberry gems, spritz, ribbon cookies, chocolate crinkles, almond macaroons, and haystacks, not to mention butterscotch brownies and coconut lime squares and pans of peppermint fudge and caramel popcorn balls. Jared stands before the feast, almost unable to decide what to eat first. He stuffs a couple cream cheese danties into his mouth, followed by half a lemon bar. He eats half a dozen krusczyki, a rice krispie bar coated with thick fudge frosting, then finds a cookie he's never had before--a peanut buttery cookie outside with one of those tiny little Snickers bars on the inside. He stuffs three into his mouth and groans as he chews--so fucking good. He eats at least one cookie from every plate, and by the time he gets to the marzipan even he has to admit he may have had enough.

He digs through one of the Harry and David fruit boxes they'd received and eats a pear just to make up for all the sugar.

A soft, orange glow from the back porch catches his eye and he smiles and shakes his head. He can make out Jeff's form in the darkness, puffing away on a cigarette. He grabs a beer from the fridge, and heads outside.

"Mama will shit a brick if she sees you smoking," Jared says as he sits next to Jeff on the steps.

"She's asleep, right?" Jeff asks, somewhat nervously.

"Yeah." He takes a sip of his beer, looks up at the dark sky.

"She'll shit a brick if she sees you drinking," Jeff tells him.

Jared shrugs. He's pretty full of sweets and the contrast of the beer is fantastic. They sit there in easy silence for a while and when Jared finishes his beer, he goes in and gets two more.

"You drink a lot at school?" Jeff asks him as he takes one of the beers from Jared's hand.

"Not a lot. On the weekends sometimes."

Jeff nods. "All right.

Jared doesn't know how to say what it is he wants to say. Doesn't know how to ask Jeff if it's normal to fool around with guys once and a while, if it's normal to get turned on when you think about it. He says, "I dated this girl, Sandy."

"Yeah? She cute?"

"Gorgeous. And maybe a little crazy. I don't know. Like, one second she's all over me, the next second she's macking on some other guy at a party."

"You sleep with her?" Jeff asks.

Jared hunches his shoulders in and sighs. "No."

Jeff laughs and reaches out to ruffle his hair. "It'll happen, JT. Don't worry about it."

"I'm not," he says. And he's not, not really. He's still thinking about Jensen, and just thinking about him doesn't do anything. He doesn't get nervous the way he does even now when he thinks about Sandy. He's not breathless the way he is when he thinks about Sophia walking around with no shirt on. When he thinks about Jensen he's just...thinking about Jensen. Until he thinks about Jensen's mouth on him, and that sends a little shiver through him even though he'd just come.

"Have you ever...?" Jared starts, then shakes his head. "Never mind."

"What's up?"

"Nothing. Just...have you ever, like, fooled around with somebody that you didn't like? I mean, you like them, but you're not, you know, interested in them?"

Jeff nods. "She know you're not interested?"

"It wasn't even...it was just like, whoops, sorry, I tend to suck cock when I'm drunk, let's just be friends."

Jeff laughs and clinks Jared's beer bottle with his own. "Nice. You OK with the whole friends thing?"

Jared nods. "Definitely. But...I don't know. Is that weird?"

"Only if you let it be. Things happen. But if you're OK with it and she's OK with it, there shouldn't be a problem."

Jared nods. He feels a little less weird about it, but he doesn't know how to ask if it's weird to have one of the best jerk off sessions of your life while remembering it.

The beer's made him drowsy, so he falls asleep nearly as soon as he climbs back under the covers. He doesn't wake up until Megan bounces on the foot of his bed, crying, "Come on, lazy ass, we can't open presents until you're awake!"

In the kitchen, his mama's making scrambled eggs with cheese and chiles and there's fresh cornbread cooling in the pan and fried ham steaks piled up crisp and juicy on a plate. Jared pours himself a cup of coffee and helps set the table. He eats his fare share of eggs and cornbread, plus two pieces of ham, a cup of coffee, a glass of milk, and a glass of orange juice. He's pleasantly full when they sit down around the tree to open presents, Megan playing Santa Claus and passing out the gifts.

Megan had had the bright idea for the three of them to get their pictures taken together, which they'd done as soon as Jared and Jeff were both back in town. When their mama unwraps the large, framed print, she gets a little teary and gets up to kiss and hug them all, and the rest of the day she keeps gazing at the photo and smiling and telling them that family is the best present ever.

Jared gets socks, which he needs, and a new iPod, which he'd wanted but hadn't really expected. He gets DVDs and CDs and a lot of sweaters because his mama apparently thinks the Midwest equals the arctic.

Adam calls him later that afternoon to tell him about all the video games he got.

"I thought you didn't celebrate Christmas," Jared says.

"Dude, I'm Jewish but I'm still American. _Everybody_ gets presents on Christmas. I should...um. So, I've been talking to Rachel a lot."

"Yeah?" Jared stretches out on his bed and scratches his stomach. They'd had fried chicken for dinner and he'd eaten six pieces. He's sleepy and full.

"You don't...I mean, OK, so things with Sandy didn't really...is it OK, I mean I know it's OK, but, like is it going to be weird if I keep seeing Rachel?"

"No," says Jared. "No way." Even if he's still embarrassed by how much he'd liked Sandy and how easily she'd dissed him, he won't ever hold that against Rachel.

"OK. OK, that's cool, because she is just, like, _awesome_. So awesome. She's hilarious and cool and she plays World of Warcraft, like, even more than me, which is awesome. Or possibly sad. But mostly awesome because I don't even have to pretend that I'm not a geek and a gamer, you know? It's so nice when you're dating somebody and you don't feel all this pressure to be a completely different person than who you are. Not that we're dating or anything, not yet. I mean, yeah, we went on a _date_ and I got some serious tongue action at the party which, OK, do not tell anyone I told you that. Especially don't tell Chad I told you that because then he'll wind up telling Rachel and she'll think I'm the kind of guy who kisses and tells, which just isn't cool. Except how I am, apparently, the kind of guy who kisses and tells since I just told you. But does that count since I know that you won't tell anybody else?"

"I don't think it counts," Jared tells him. "And I think Rachel's really cool."

"Isn't she? You should read her blog, it's amazing, and---"

Jared just drifts while Adam prattles on about Rachel and video games and his new speakers. He really, really misses school and his friends.

The next few days he mostly just eats and sleeps. His mama gets so annoyed with him that she kicks him outside and makes him clean the shed just so he won't grow moss on his backside. Instead of cleaning the shed, he sits down behind it where she can't see him from the house and pulls out his phone.

He plays a few games of solitaire, then texts Jensen. _chores suck_

He's not surprised when his phone rings a moment later. "Hey, Jen," he says.

"So, what, they've got you scrubbing toilets with your toothbrush?" Jensen asks.

"Cleaning out the shed."

"Ah," Jensen says with a sigh. "Cruel and unusual."

"Mostly my mama just wanted me out of the house. I've been laying on the couch all day, driving her crazy." He keeps thinking about that night, thinking about Jensen's mouth so hot and slippery-soft around his cock. He wonders if it's weird, sucking cock. He thinks it's probably not weird if you're gay, but he's not sure. Maybe it's always weird.

"I am so hungover," Jensen says. "I went out last night with my cousins and, ooooh. Seriously."

"I thought your cousins did things like play Bible verse trivia."

"They do. These are different cousins. In my family you're either a hard-core Christian or a hard-core partier."

"Which are you?"

"A little of both, I guess. Or neither. Chris--you met Chris."

"Yeah. I have a vague memory of the night I met him."

"He was telling stories, and he can bullshit with the best of them, and he was pouring shots and we were all just downing 'em one after another."

"You gonna yack?"

"No."

"You sure? Because I think whenever you combine Chris and alcohol, yacking somehow becomes involved."

"That's true, but this time it's not me puking. My brother, though?" Jensen laughs. "Still clinging to the toilet bowl. And my mama's pissed, knows exactly what we got up to last night so she fried up a big pan of bacon and brought it into his room just so he'd really get the scent."

"That's cruel."

"She gets inspired when she's angry. God, when I told her--" he stops talking suddenly.

"When you told her what?"

"That I was attracted to guys," Jensen says softly.

"I didn't think they knew."

"They don't. It's complicated."

"So you've said."

"They know," Jensen tells him. "Or they knew. I didn't..." he sighs and doesn't say anything for a long time.

"Jensen?"

"I told them and it wasn't good. I don't...it's not like they threatened to kick me out or anything. They're not bad people."

"I'm sure they're not."

"They just...it really hurt them. And they were scared. They wanted me to have a normal life so they found this program and it was supposed to cure me."

Jared feels his stomach drop. "Oh, Jen," he murmurs.

"And I did it. I went. But I just...I didn't know how to tell them that it didn't work. I still don't know how to tell them so I just...I just let them think it worked. That I'm cured."

"But it doesn't...it doesn't work like that, does it? It's not like...I don't know. Pneumonia. It's not a disease. It's just the way you are."

Jensen sighs.

"What? Am I wrong? Because you can tell me if I'm wrong."

"I don't think you're wrong. Because I tried. I really fucking tried to change and I just..."

Jared listens to Jensen's deep breaths on the other end of the line and he doesn't know what to say, doesn't know what to do. He can't imagine what it must be like to think there was something so fundamentally wrong with yourself that you had to pray to God to change you and lie when it didn't work, and just the thought of Jensen having to do that churns in his gut.

"You can come to San Antonio," is what he says, finally. "You know, if you need a break."

Jensen's breathing is uneven. Jared knows he's trying not to cry so he keeps talking to cover it.

"And, you know, if you want practice telling people you're gay, you can tell my sister. I'm pretty sure she already thinks you're my boyfriend."

Jensen's laugh is choked but real. "I don't know how to feel about you," he whispers.

"What do you mean?"

"Nobody else reacts to me the way you do. Everybody else is just...I don't know. Angry or ashamed or uncomfortable and you're just not. I'm not used to that. I don't know what to do with that."

"Accept it, asshole."

Jensen laughs softly. "Yeah. Yeah, OK."

They talk for a little longer after that about nothing important, about Christmas presents and how much they each had to eat on Christmas Day, what their plans are for New Year's. Soon, though, Jared's mama comes out of the house with a frown on her face and a flyswatter in her hand and Jared jumps to his feet and gets started on cleaning out the shed before she can smack him one.

Jeff leaves on New Year's Day, and his mama's so sad that Jared even agrees to help her go grocery shopping when she asks. He doesn't like grocery shopping since it just makes him hungry and he can't eat anything until they get it home.

He's carrying in two 24-packs of soda when he hears Megan laugh. It's not her normal laugh, it's the strange giggle she gets when she's talking to boys. Jared frowns and heads towards the kitchen, where Megan's still giggling. If she invited that Dakota kid over while nobody else was home, there's going to be some explaining to do. And maybe a bloody nose for Dakota.

He strides into the kitchen still carrying the soda, ready to ask what the hell is going on, but he doesn't ask. He just stops in the doorway and grins because Megan's not giggling at Dakota, she's giggling at _Jensen_ , who's sitting right there at Jared's kitchen table.

"What are you doing here?" Jared asks, laughing and putting the soda on the counter.

"Uh, hey," says Jensen, standing up and rubbing the back of his neck. "Um, you said I could come down so, well, surprise."

Jared grins and strides towards him.

Jensen sighs. "You're going to hug me now, aren't you?"

"Yup," Jared says, wrapping his arms around Jensen's shoulders.

Jensen reaches up to pat Jared's back awkwardly.

"Man," Jared says as he pulls back. "This is so cool! Hey, look who's here!" he calls as his parents come in carrying grocery bags.

"Jensen!" Jared's mama cries happily.

Jensen seems a little uncomfortable when the hugging starts, but that's just the way Jared was raised, his mama and daddy both never scrimping on affection. Once he realizes that he's just going to get hugged by Jared's mama and daddy and sister, Jensen seems to relax and just go with it.

"You've got a real nice truck," says Megan.

"How was the drive?" Jared's daddy asks.

"You must be starving," says Jared's mama. "Are you hungry? What are you in the mood for?"

Jared laughs at the dazed look in Jensen's eyes. His family can be overwhelming, he knows that. "I'm gonna show him around," he says, taking Jensen by the arm and pulling him out of the kitchen.

"Family room," he says as they walk through it quickly and head down the hall. "Living room over there. Sun porch. Bathroom to the right. This is my room."

"Quick tour," Jensen says as Jared shuts his bedroom door.

"Figured you could use a break from the game of twenty questions going on out there," Jared says. "They mean well, but they're kind of...enthusiastic."

Jensen smiles a little bit and shakes his head. "I like them."

"You OK?"

Jensen sighs. "You said I could come down if I needed a break. I know I didn’t call, but--"

"You don't have to call," Jared tells him. "I'm glad you're here. I just want to know if you're OK."

He sighs again. "I don't know."

This time when Jared pulls him into a hug, Jensen doesn't fight it. His arms come up and wrap around Jared's waist and he presses his forehead to Jared's shoulder.

"What's wrong?" he asks as he feels Jensen tremble beneath his touch.

Jensen pushes away, wipes one hand over his face. "Nothing. God. I'm sorry. I just--"

"Don't be sorry," Jared tells him. "What's going on?"

"Just, my parents and I kind of had it out. I told them the truth. That I'm not...that it didn't work."

Jared nods. "And?"

"And they weren't as surprised as I thought they'd be, but they're still not happy. We just kept going around and around and..." He sighs and sits on the edge of Jared's bed. "I couldn't keep having the same fights and conversations with them over and over again. I needed to get away."

Jared sits next to him, bumps Jensen's shoulder with his own. "OK."

"Your parents won't mind if I crash for a few days before we head back up to school?"

"Weren't you there in the kitchen when everybody was fawning over you? Of course they won't mind." Jared loops his arm over Jensen's shoulders and grins.

"Please don't sing," Jensen says.

"You owe me one," Jared reminds him.

"Yeah, but it can wait."

Jared pulls his arm back and stands up. "Yeah. It can. Come on, let's help put those groceries away and see if we can talk my mama into making brisket for dinner."

"I love brisket," Jensen says, getting up and following him out the door, ready to brave the Padalecki family again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared and Jensen are college roommates. Jensen's gay and Jared's straight. Sort of.

On their last day in San Antonio, Jared wakes up even before the sun begins to shine through his curtains. He pops up out of bed and showers and drinks a cup of coffee, then pours one for Jensen and heads down the hall. He can't wait to show Jensen around San Antonio. They'd spent the first day just hanging out and playing video games, going out for burgers with a couple of Jared's friends from high school. The second day, Jared's mama had sweet talked them into cleaning out the garage and it was pretty much just video games and pizza after that.

Today, though, Jared's got a plan. He nudges Jeff's childhood bedroom door open and Jensen's there in Jeff's bed, still asleep, stretched out on his stomach with the covers around his waist.

"Hey," Jared says quietly. Jensen doesn't stir. "Hey," he says again, louder. He still doesn't get a response. It's not really surprising. Jensen's been there for three days and hasn't once gotten up before nine o'clock.

He steps into the room, moves next to the bed and waves the coffee cup near Jensen's head. "I have coffee," he says.

Jensen grunts once.

"I have really, really good coffee?"

"Time's it?" Jensen asks.

"Um..." Jared looks at the clock. "Six."

Jensen groans and reaches down to pull the covers over his head.

Jared waits a minute for Jensen to get up, then sighs and sets both mugs of coffee down on the side table. He tugs the covers down so he can see Jensen's face. "I have things planned."

"Sun's not up, I'm not up," Jensen tells him. "Go away."

"The sun won't be up for another hour!" Jared cries. "Half the day will be gone by then!"

Jensen turns his head just enough so that he can fix Jared with one bleary eye. "I will kill you if I have to."

Jared crosses his arms over his chest but Jensen doesn't seem to care that he's pouting. "Fine," he says finally. "But your coffee will get cold."

Jensen grunts and rolls onto his side, facing away from Jared, and pulls the covers over his head again.

Jared heads into the kitchen where his mama's already making breakfast. Everybody in his family except his daddy is an early riser.

Megan's not quite a tomboy, but she's never been one of those strange girls who cared more about fashion than sports. She's usually in jeans and a t-shirt with her long hair in a ponytail, her skin clean and soft. This morning, though, Megan's hair is curled and full, hanging around her shoulders in waves. She's wearing a makeup. And a skirt. And _perfume_.

"What's wrong with you?" Jared asks as she strolls into the kitchen.

"Nothing," she says primly. She sits at the kitchen table and crosses her legs, looks at the food spread out. "Do we have any yogurt?" she asks.

"I...well..." Their mama looks just as surprised as Jared does. "I think I may have some leftover from last week when I made that chicken marinade." She digs in the fridge and comes up with a half-full tub of plain yogurt. "Will this do?"

Megan sighs and rolls her eyes. "No. Never mind. I'll just have coffee."

"OK," says Jared. "Have you been possessed by aliens?"

Megan rolls her eyes at him, too.

"You don't even drink coffee," he says.

"You don’t know everything about me," she snaps as she stands up and pours herself a cup of coffee. She sips it while glaring at him but he can tell from the slight furrow of her eyebrows that she doesn't like it.

"So," Megan says, a little too casually as she sits back down at the kitchen table. "Where's Jensen?"

"Still asleep," Jared says before he gets it. "Oh. _Oh_! You're doing this for him?" He laughs and leans back in his chair.

"I'm not doing anything," she cries. "Mama."

"Leave your sister be," his mama says softly.

"But the coffee and the perfume and her _hair_."

"What's wrong with my hair?" she asks, reaching up with one hand to tug on the ends.

"It's big," he tells her.

"JT." Their mama's voice is firm. "Leave it be. Your hair looks lovely, Megan."

"Jensen's not going to go out with her," he says.

"Mama!" Megan cries again. "I hate you!" she shouts at Jared before pushing back from the table and running out of the kitchen.

Jared's surprised when his mama cuffs him upside the back of his head.

"What?" he asks.

"You need to be nicer to your sister."

"But she's all...perfumey and weird. Over _Jensen_."

His mama sighs. "I had a feeling this might happen."

"What? That Megan would go delusional?"

"You may not have noticed, but Jensen's a very handsome boy. I have a feeling that most girls who meet him get crushes on him, and your sister's no exception."

"But he's not even--" He doesn't know what to say. It's not his place to tell his mama the truth. He settles on, "She's not his type."

"That doesn't matter. What matters is that she's your sister and she deserves better from you than teasing over such a sensitive subject."

Jared frowns. "Well, she's still acting weird. Why do girls always have to change and do weird stuff like that? Why can't they just be honest?"

Jared's mama sighs.

"It's possible that I'm working out my own issues right now," he admits.

She laughs and sits down across from him, sips her coffee. "You having trouble with girls at school, honey?"

"No. Just...just one girl. Who I thought liked me and then who, like, ditched me in front of everybody five minutes later." He frowns at his breakfast. "She could have just told me she wasn't interested."

"She obviously doesn't deserve you," his mama tells him.

Jared sighs and picks up his fork. "Thanks," he says. Once he's finished with breakfast he watches a little TV, but there's nothing on but children's shows and he can only watch one episode of _Teletubbies_ before his brain starts to disconnect from his body.

He goes to Jeff's room, shuts the door behind him and stretches out on the bed next to Jensen.

"'m not getting up," Jensen mutters.

"OK."

Jensen eyes him suspiciously for a moment, then closes his eyes.

Jared thinks about what his mama said, about Jensen being handsome. Jared's noticed. It's kind of impossible not to notice. Jensen's ridiculously good looking, sharp green eyes and full lips and, hell, Jared should not be thinking about Jensen's lips, like, at all. Thinking about Jensen's lips makes him think about the things Jensen can do with his lips, and getting wood while lying next to your best friend in your brother's bedroom is kinda fucked up.

"You're looking at me," Jensen says. "Stop it."

"My sister's in love with you."

Jensen groans.

"Do you get that a lot?"

"Get what?"

"Girls falling in love with you at first sight because of how pretty you are."

Jensen groans and burrows further beneath the covers. "Shut up," he says.

"What?"

Jensen flips the covers down and looks over at him. "It happens sometimes," he says. "And it's just...weird."

"What about when guys fall in love with you at first sight? Is that better?"

Jensen hunches up his shoulders and Jared can tell how uncomfortable he is with the conversation. "Not really," he admits. "I don't like it when people look at me."

"Because you're shy."

"I'm not shy. I'm reserved."

Jared grins. "Shy."

"Asshole," Jensen grumbles.

Jared closes his eyes and drifts in and out of sleep for a while. When he wakes up fully again, then sun's shining bright. He opens his eyes and sees Jensen looking right at him.

"Hey," Jared says softly, yawning as Jensen looks away.

"Hey," says Jensen. "I, uh, I just realized that I didn't get you anything for Christmas."

"That's OK. I didn't get you anything, either. I'm just glad you're here."

"Please don't hug me right now."

Jared laughs loudly. "No in-bed hugging. Got it. Come on. Get up. I've got things planned."

Jensen grumbles a little bit, but he gets up eventually and drinks his cold coffee and takes a shower.

He takes Jensen to the Riverwalk, of course. It's a nice, sunny day, cool but not cold. They skip The Alamo. Jared knows it's tantamount to treason, but he thinks it's kind of boring. Plus, he's gone at least once a year on field trips since he was in kindergarten.

They go to Chris Madrid's for gigantic flaming jalapeño burgers with mounds of fries on the side, then head out of town towards Natural Bridges Caverns. A little touristy, yes, but awesome nonetheless. He wishes he'd known Jensen was coming because he totally would have called ahead and spent all his Christmas money booking them on the South Cavern adventure tour.

They take the North Cavern tour, instead, and Jared geeks out for a little bit, rambling on about how cool it is that where Texas is now used to be the floor of an ocean and the awesomeness of helicites and how amazing it is that the entire cave was formed just because of something as simple as water and how some of the best caves in the world are right around San Antonio. He reels it back in, though, when he sees Jensen smiling at him.

"I like caves," he says a little sullenly, stuffing his hands in his pockets.

"I didn't say anything."

"You were laughing at me."

"I wasn't," Jensen says. "And since when do you care if I laugh at you? You're usually _trying_ to make me laugh at you."

"That's different," Jared says, looking away and pointedly studying a piece of cave bacon.

"I wasn't laughing," Jensen tells him. "I just didn't expect you to be so enthusiastic."

"I'm a geek," Jared admits with a sigh.

"Thank God," Jensen says, bumping Jared's shoulder with his own. "I can't stand people who aren't."

They get back to the house about ten minutes before the pizza arrives. Jared's parents are going out to dinner, but his mama was apparently worried that they'd starve by themselves because she ordered four large pizzas, plus breadsticks.

Just after the pizza come three of Megan's friends, girls that look nothing like Jared remembers them. He remembers them in ponytails and headbands playing basketball in the driveway or practicing their pitching in the backyard. Instead, they're all make-uped and girly with low-cut tops and sparkling jewelry. They're actually pretty hot.

Jensen looks frozen in fear as Megan and her friends surround him, trapping him against the kitchen counter. Jared wants to laugh. If it wasn't so sad, it would be funny.

The girls are chattering away and Megan's saying something about how much she likes Jensen's thumb ring and, yeah. Jensen's suffering.

"Hey, Jen," Jared says. "Come on, I need to show you something."

Jensen looks relieved and nods and follows Jared as quickly as he can. "What's up?" he asks as they get to Jared's room.

"Nothing. Just figured you could use a breather."

Jensen laughs and rubs his hands over his face.

"Girls are weird," Jared says.

"Yeah."

"You want me to grab the pizza so we can hang in here for the rest of the night?"

"You don't have to," says Jensen, but he's worrying his lower lip and doesn't look thrilled at the idea of leaving Jared's room again and having to deal with a gaggle of high school girls.

Jared goes out, grabs the pizza and some soda. When he gets back, Jensen's sitting at his chess table, pushing the pieces around.

"Do you play?" Jared asks.

Jensen shrugs. "A little."

Jared grins widely. "Five bucks a game?"

Jensen looks over at him and laughs. "Oh, you're just gonna take my money, now?"

"What?" he asks. "Maybe you'll take my money."

"Not with that fucking grin I won't. You really have a shitty poker face, you know."

Jared laughs and sits down on the black side of the table. "Yeah, I know. Come on, you get to move first."

"I do know the rules," Jensen says, moving the white pawns back into place.

Jensen's not bad, but Jared's a lot better. He wins the first game in nine moves.

Jensen leans back in his chair, still looking at the board, and says, "Huh."

"Your pawns are more valuable than you think they are," Jared tells him. "A weak pawn structure leaves you open to attack from all sides, especially in the endgame."

"Huh," says Jensen again.

"Here, let me show you." Jared moves the pieces back to the way they'd been after three moves, shows Jensen the way he should have moved to better defend himself.

"But I wanted your bishop," Jensen says.

"You didn't think ahead. You left your king wide open to attack."

Jensen frowns and looks at the chess board.

"Come on, let's play again and see if you can figure out where I'm going to move before I do it."

The next game takes longer. Jensen castles and keeps his king protected behind three pawns until the very end. What he needs to do is move his pawn from 2f to 1f to protect his king from Jared's rook. Instead, he thinks offensively and moves his knight closer to Jared's king. Jared sighs, slides his rook across the board. "Check," he says. "And mate."

"Damnit," says Jensen. "Come on. Let's go again."

After three more short games, Jensen hits his stride and they spend two hours in near silence, moving pieces back and forth across the board. Jared wins again, but barely, and Jensen had managed to put him in check twice.

"What are you guys doing in there?" Megan asks, catching Jared in the hall when he leaves to take a bathroom break.

"Hiding from you."

She huffs and crosses her arms over her chest.

"We're playing chess."

Megan rolls her eyes. "Please don't geekify him," she says. "He's too hot for that."

"I'm not...it's...he's not going to go out with you, Megan."

Her jaw juts out in an angry line.

"It's not about you. You're just not his type."

"How do you know?"

"Because he's my best friend. And he's also really shy, so your friends cornering him--"

"They didn't _corner_ him."

"You guys cornering him in the kitchen made him feel weird," he says. "And maybe he doesn't like it when people react to him just because of the way he looks."

"It's not just that," Megan says sadly, rubbing one of her arms. "He's really cool. We just want to hang out."

Jared sighs but Megan's giving him puppy dog eyes and looking sad and contrite. "I'll see if he wants to watch a movie or something, but no promises."

Megan grins and leans up to kiss his cheek.

"I may have just brokered an armistice," Jared says as he comes back into his room.

"Hmm," is all Jensen says. He moves a couple pieces on the chessboard, furrows his brow as he thinks.

"You've got the fever, don't you?" Jared asks. "How about we give chess a break and watch a movie?"

Jensen looks up from the board. "What?"

Jared laughs and shakes his head. "I know it's addictive, but we don't want your brain to fry on the first night. Megan promises the girls won't be weird if you wanna watch a DVD or something."

"Oh," says Jensen, straightening up. "Yeah, OK. But can we play again after?"

"Maybe," Jared says, smiling. He's never had anyone his own age who loved chess as much as him before. He hadn't even brought his set to school, worried that it would make him look like a dork. It was really good to play again.

"I'm a little competitive," Jensen says. "I'm warning you now."

"So am I," says Jared. "Don't worry. I'll keep kicking your ass for as long as you want me to."

Jensen shakes his head and squints at Jared in what Jared guesses is supposed to be a threatening manner. Jared just laughs.

They watch a movie with the girls, even though it's _The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants._ Jared won't say it, but he thinks Alexis Bledel is kind of hot.

They get to sleep after midnight even though they have to leave early the next morning. Jared totally doesn't get teary-eyed when his mama hugs him goodbye.

Thankfully, Jensen just turns up the radio in the truck and doesn't speak, lets Jared look out the window and be sad about leaving for a while, before Willie Nelson's _On The Road Again_ pulls Jared out of his funk and compels them both to sing along.

It's nearly eleven at night by the time they get back to campus. They cart all their bags up three flights of stairs, then go back down to move the truck. The walk back from the C lot is cold and long and Jared's exhausted, but at least it feels good to move his legs.

"I'm going to sleep for a week," he says as they make the final ascent up the stairs.

Jensen, who's stopped on the landing to rest, grunts his assent.

Thankfully, classes don't start until Tuesday, so they can sleep in Monday morning. Adam arrives from the airport Monday afternoon and immediately sets up his new Wii. Jensen acts like he's too cool for it, but Jared happily kicks Adam's ass at _Madden 07_ and gets his ass kicked at _Need for Speed_ , mostly because he's unfamiliar with the remote.

The day goes by faster than Jared thought it should, and Tuesday morning he's trudging through three scant inches of snow on the ground towards his 8am pre-calc class. He may be an early riser, but even he thinks eight in the morning is too early for math.

On the way back to the dorms, he sees Sandy walking with a friend and actually ducks behind a tree to avoid her. He feels like a complete idiot afterwards and hopes nobody saw him hide from a little girl.

When he gets back, Chad's suitcases are piled up in the common room. Chad's tan, the bridge of his nose peeling a little bit.

"Where have you been?" Jared asks.

"St. Thomas," Chad says, stretching and yawning. "Sophia's folks have a place there."

"She's talking to you again?"

"Of course," he says easily. "That girl loves me. Are you fatter than you were before break?"

"No," says Jared. He looks down at his stomach, puts his hand on it.

"I think you're getting fat."

"I am not," Jared says, hating how much of a girl he sounds like.

"Whatever you say, Tubby."

Jared frowns and pretends to ignore him. Later that night, he lifts his shirt up and looks at his stomach in the mirror. He can't tell if he's getting softer than he was or if he's just being paranoid.

"Am I getting a tummy?" he asks Jensen, turning sideways as he keeps his eyes on the mirror. He places his hand on his stomach. "I am. I'm totally getting a tummy."

"Maybe you're pregnant," Jensen says, not looking up from his notes.

"If I am, that would make you the father, so congratulations."

"Congratulations on what?" Adam asks, leaning against the open door.

Jared pooches his stomach out. "I'm having Jensen's baby."

Jensen flips a page in his textbook. "And they say oral sex can't get you pregnant. Shows you what scientists know."

Adam looks from Jared to Jensen and then back again. "Yeah. Whatever. Look, about Sandy--"

Jared groans. He really, really hopes Sandy hadn't seen him ducking behind that tree.

"I know, dude. I know. And she's totally sorry about the way she acted. She says she was just nervous and freaked out."

Jensen snorts but doesn't say anything. He takes out a highlighter and marks a couple sentences.

"Anyway," Adam says, "I'm heading over there now to hang out with Rachel and you should totally come with me."

"I don't know."

"Sandy wants you to come, OK?"

Jared sighs.

"She's sorry about the way she acted and she wants a chance to apologize."

"Since when are you Sandy's go-to boy?" Jensen asks.

"No," says Jared. "No, it's all right. I'll go."

Jensen grumbles and Adam grins and Jared grabs his coat so they can head over to Rachel and Sandy's dorm.

When they get there, Rachel's lounging on her bed and Sandy's standing in the middle of the room looking nervous. She sighs and tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. "I'm a bitch," she says.

Jared wants to tell her that she's not, but it would be a lie.

"Can I just...I want to explain what happened. You deserve that at least."

"OK."

Sandy looks over to where Rachel and Adam are sitting on Rachel's bed, watching them. "Privacy?" Sandy asks.

"Right," says Rachel, standing. "Hey, Adam, have you seen the student lounge?"

"No, but I'm sure it's fascinating." Adam follows her out of the room and when the door closes, Sandy sighs again.

"So," she says.

Jared nods. "So?"

"My mom was a Chi Omega," Sandy tells him. "My sisters were all Chi Omegas. So when I got here, I pledged Chi Omega."

He stuffs his hands in his pockets.

"And the president of Chi Omega is this...God. Complete bitch named Paris. And she was at the party that night, and when you went to get the beer, she came up to me and told me I had to dis you in front of everybody, so I...I had to do it. If I wanted to get in, I had to do what she said."

Jared scratches his ear.

"Jared," Sandy says.

"Oh, I'm just waiting for the rest of it because as far as explanations go, that one's piss poor."

"I know," she says. "I know it is. And I'm an idiot for doing it and it just...I thought it was important at the time, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I don't want to be that person. So I quit. I can't...if I can't even stand up for myself then maybe I don't deserve to be in a sorority. And I'm so embarrassed that I let myself act that way for something so stupid, and I just...I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry."

"OK," says Jared.

"Do you hate me?"

He shakes his head. He can't hate her. She's so tiny and cute and sincere, and for a moment there he'd thought she might start to cry. "I don't hate you."

She sighs in obvious relief and grins at him. "Can we have a do over?"

"I don't know," he admits. "Maybe?"

"Just one more chance," she tells him. "I won't be a bitch, I promise."

"OK," he says. "Friday night?"

Sandy nods happily. She leans up like she wants to kiss him, but Jared can still feel the sting of rejection so he just moves to shake her hand instead. It's weird, he knows, but he's not sure if he's completely forgiven her, yet.

"I'll come by Friday at eight," he tells her.

"OK," she says. She smiles at him as he leaves. He feels like an idiot.

When he passes the student lounge, Adam and Rachel are sitting on one of the couches, staring blankly at the walls.

"You can go back to the room, now," Jared tells them.

"Thank God," says Adam.

Rachel bats him on the arm.

"Um. I mean how did things work out?"

"We're going out on Friday," Jared tells him.

"Awesome," says Adam. "See, Rach, nothing to worry about."

"I wasn’t worried," Rachel tells him.

"Yeah, OK. Maybe I was a little worried. But this'll be awesome, Jay. You'll see."

Jared nods and plasters on what he hopes is a convincing grin. He spends the rest of the week feeling like he's heading towards something horrible--the dentist or the DMV or something. Not even kicking Jensen's ass at chess on his tiny little magnetic board distracts him for long.

Friday night, it's all he can do to pick at his food.

"Dude," says Jensen, watching Jared push his taco casserole around on his plate. "What's with you? You love taco casserole."

"I know," Jared says. He takes a bite, can't even enjoy its greasy, spicy goodness. "This date with Sandy, I'm not so sure about it."

"So don't go," Jensen says easily.

"It's tonight."

"And?"

"And I can't cancel on her just hours before the date."

Jensen shrugs and eats his dinner.

"Can I?" Jared asks.

"It would be pretty shitty," Jensen agrees. "But no less than what she deserves."

"She explained it."

"And it was a stupid explanation."

"She felt really bad."

"Whatever," says Jensen.

Jared looks down at his plate, eats as much taco casserole as he can stand and waits for Jensen to finish.

"Why don't you ever date?" he asks as they walk back to the dorm.

"I date," Jensen says. "I just...haven't in a while."

When they get to their hall, Mike the RA is walking slowly, leaning one shoulder against the wall like he's already drunk. Or maybe high. Jared's not quite sure how he even got to be an RA.

"Jeremy!" Mike cries happily.

"Jared."

"That's what I said. What's up, little man? Hey, you're the new guy, right?"

Jensen nods and rubs the back of his neck.

"Hey, Jensen," says the guy standing with Mike.

Jensen nods again. He doesn't say anything and he doesn't look up.

"You and Tommy know each other?" Mike asks. "Sweet. We're headed out to karaoke if you're interested. Two dollars off any drink with tequila in it."

"Um..." says Jared. "I'm not twenty-one, yet."

"Really?" Mike asks. "You're tall. Have fun, then. Stay off drugs." He pats Jared on the arm and walks on past.

Jared looks over at Jensen, expecting to share a grin and maybe an eye-roll over how crazy Mike is. Jensen's not looking at him, though. He's still staring at the floor and he stuffs his hands in his jeans as they head silently down the hall towards their room.

"Jensen," someone says from behind them. Jared turns and sees the guy that had been standing with Mike. Jensen just keeps walking. "Jensen, please," the guy says again.

Jensen turns and lifts his head, looks at the guy for a moment. He raises his hands in an impatient gesture.

"We should talk," the guy says.

"And say what?"

"I didn't know. I didn't know that you'd...I didn't mean to..."

"I know," Jensen says softly. "Don't worry about it, OK?"

"But I--"

"I mean it. Don't worry about it."

"I'm sorry."

Jensen nods. "Thanks."

They look at each other for a long moment before the guy turns and walks away. Jensen waits until he's around the corner before falling back against the wall and putting his hands over his face.

"Fuck."

Jared leans against the wall next to Jensen. "I'm gonna go out on a limb, here, and guess the two of you used to go out."

Jensen lets his arms drop to his sides. "You could say that."

"You wanna talk about it?"

"Nope." Jensen pushes off against the wall and heads towards their room. Jared follows him, chewing on his lower lip.

"Are you sure you don't want to talk about it?" Jared asks.

"I'm sure." Jensen climbs up onto his bunk and slumps back against the wall.

"Because if you want to--"

"Don't you have a date?" Jensen asks sharply.

"I can skip it if you--"

"Go on your fucking date," Jensen snaps. "I'm fine. And I'm sure I don't want to talk about it."

Jared reluctantly gets ready for his date with Sandy. He feels like he should ask Jensen to talk about it again, but Jensen's staring pointedly down at his physics textbook, so Jared just leaves with a, "See you later."

Neither he nor Sandy has a car, so they settle on walking down to the Union and having pizza. Conversation is strained and mostly Jared tries to remember why he liked her. It's not that he dislikes her, she seems pretty cool, but he's not interested in her anymore.

Sandy still seems interested in him, though, and he's not sure what to say to that, so he leaves her with a kiss on the cheek and an agreement to go out again on Wednesday.

He walks back to his dorm with his head down and his hands stuffed in his pockets. He walks past the dorm and just keeps on walking. He can't stop thinking about that guy in the hall and how sad Jensen had looked. He wonders what happened between them. He wonders if he could find the guy and kick his ass. He was pretty big, though, almost as tall as Jared and twice as broad in the shoulders. Jared's throat-crushing powers would probably be useless on him. Not that Jared would actually crush the guy's throat. He enjoys thinking about it for a while though, wants to hurt anybody who makes Jensen look so broken.

He finally heads back to the dorm once his toes are nearly frozen. The lights in the room are off so he tries to be quiet as he gets ready for bed.

"How'd it go?" Jensen asks sleepily.

"I didn't mean to wake you up."

"You didn't. You have fun?"

Jared shrugs and sighs. "I don't know." He feels around in his closet for sweats and a t-shirt, changes into them and gets into bed. "It was weird."

"Weird how?"

"Just...weird. I kept waiting for the punch line, pretty sure that the joke was going to be on me."

"She did come clean with you," Jensen tells him. "You were right to give her a second chance."

"I guess. We're going to see a movie on Wednesday. Everybody deserves the benefit of the doubt, I know that, but it's hard."

"Yeah, well, if anybody can do it, it's you. Nicest freakin' guy on the planet."

Jared sighs. His feet are still cold so he draws them up closer to the rest of his body. "That guy tonight, he's why you don't date, right?"

"Just let it go, Jay. We went out and it didn't work. It's not the end of the world."

"You should date. I'm sure there are a lot of guys out there who'd be crazy about you."

"It's not that easy," Jensen says, and Jared can hear him rolling over. "It can be...I mean, I know all guys aren't shallow, but there's a lot of it going around. It's hard to find somebody who takes you seriously, who's looking for more than just one night or some casual thing."

"Have you had a lot of sex?"

Jensen laughs. "What? Because I'm gay you think I'm a slut?"

"No. I think I'd know it if you were out fucking around every night. I just...you have, right? Had a lot of sex."

"Not really."

"More than me."

"Stop worrying about it. You'll find the right girl."

Jared thinks, _What if I don't want a girl?_ and it scares him a little bit. What he really wants is to climb into bed with Jensen, wrap their bodies together and kiss and, God, he just fucking wants to feel Jensen come apart under him, because of him. He wants to make Jensen happy.

He can't say any of that, though, so he says, "You're changing the subject."

"You noticed."

"How many?"

"How many what?"

"How many people have you slept with?"

Jensen sighs.

"It's only fair. You know my answer already."

"Three girls," Jensen says. "Two guys."

"Really? That's all?"

Jensen laughs. "Jerk. I told you it wasn't very many. The girls were all in high school when I was still trying to be straight."

"And the guys?" Jared tries to keep his voice steady. He's not completely hard but he is turned on thinking about Jensen, thinking about Jensen having sex.

"When I got here, I was still trying to be straight. I knew, even then, that it wouldn’t work, but I tried. And then I just...met this guy."

"The guy from last night?"

"No. He came later. The first guy, it was just one night. I've never even seen him again."

"And the second guy?"

"Go to sleep," Jensen says softly.

"Jen?"

"Night, Jay." Jared hears him shift in bed, but he doesn't say anything else. He really doesn't want to talk about it, and Jared wants to know why but he's got a bit of an epiphany of his own to deal with.

He's a little bit in love with Jensen. It doesn't freak him out as much as he thinks it should. He would have known before if he was into guys, right? Because it's not like he ever had a crush on a guy before, except maybe Brad Pitt in _Ocean's Eleven_ but, Christ, everybody in the entire world had a crush on Rusty Ryan. And maybe he'd jerked off thinking about Johnny Depp, but he was just fucking cool. It was more like Jared wanted to be him than sleep with him. Right?

Because Jensen's cool. He's got that whole strong and silent thing going for him where Jared's kind of a spaz. Maybe he just wants to be like Jensen. Only, thinking about Jensen makes him hard and he thinks that's going a little beyond hero worship. Jared thinks Einstein is awesome and would love to be like him, but it's not like the guy turns him on.

He spends the entire night curled up on his side, staring at the wall, thinking about it. And when dawn breaks and he still hasn't slept he's still only come up with one real answer. He's a little bit in love with Jensen, which makes him a little bit gay. He feels like an idiot for not realizing it sooner.

He finally drops off to sleep around nine o'clock in the morning and doesn't wake up until six that night. His first thought is that his sleep patterns are going to be seriously fucked up. His second thought is that hey, he's a little gay.

He takes a shower and gets dressed, lies back down on his bed and tries to study. Jensen comes back to the room after a while, says, "Hey, man, you're up."

Jared nods.

"Thought you might have been in a coma."

Jared shakes his head. He doesn't know what to say. He's afraid if he opens his mouth he might say something stupid like, _I'm in love with you, wanna have sex?_

"Are you pissed at me?" Jensen asks softly.

"What? No. Why would I be pissed at you?"

"Because you've been pretending to be asleep all day and you're not talking to me now."

"I actually was asleep all day," Jared admits. Turns out he can talk without blurting out the truth, after all. "I didn't sleep very well last night."

"Because if you're pissed that I...I don't like to talk about it, about Tom. It doesn't have anything to do with you. He just...he had a girlfriend."

"The guy from last night?"

"Yeah. Tom. He had a girlfriend. Has a girlfriend. Last I heard, they were engaged."

"Oh," says Jared.

"I didn't know. He never told me, not until the end."

"I'm sorry."

"I took it bad," he says softly. "I took it real bad. I didn't...I wasn't out to anyone. Not even Chris knew. My family thought I'd been cured. I didn't have anybody to talk to."

"That must have been really hard."

Jensen nods. "I kind of had a little breakdown and I...God, this is so stupid. I'm kind of high strung and, uh, they give you pills for that, only you're not supposed to take them all at once."

Jared doesn't know what to say. He knows he should say something, anything, but he can't wrap his head around it. He's such a jerk, worrying about himself and being a little gay when Jensen's telling him about going through much worse.

"I didn't want to die," Jensen says quickly. "Not really. I just wanted it to stop hurting. I got scared after I did it, called Chris. He took me to the ER. I had to stay in the hospital for a while after that. Took a year off, worked, got my head back on straight." He shrugs. "So that's the story behind what went on last night." He clears his throat and stands up. "I'm gonna hit the library."

"What?" Jared asks as Jensen grabs his backpack.

"Library," Jensen says. "I've got to photocopy some stuff and--"

"You drop that on me and you're going to the _library_? Fuck that. You can't just--"

"I don't really like talking about it," Jensen says, "but I thought you should know."

"OK. Fine. Don't talk about it, just...you're OK, right?"

"I'm not going to off myself if that's what you're worried about."

"I kind of am."

"I won't."

"Any if you need to talk, you know that I always--"

"I know."

"Any time. If I'm asleep, just wake me up."

"I do have a therapist," Jensen tells him. "Where do you think I go every Wednesday afternoon?"

"Still."

"OK." Jensen looks down at his backpack for a while.

Jared kind of wants to kiss Jensen to make it better, and that's weird. "Do you really have photocopies to make on a Saturday night?"

Jensen hesitates. "No."

"You wanna go do something?"

"As long as you don't make me talk about my feelings."

"Deal," says Jared. Talking about feelings is overrated. He thinks he probably never wants to talk about his feelings ever again. Or until he figures out the whole being a little bit gay thing.

They end up at Chris' again, though there's no party. When he and Jensen show up, Chris has just fired up the grill on the snow-dusted back porch.

"Hope you don't mind us just dropping by," Jensen says.

"Hell no, son," Chris says, pulling him into a one-armed hug. "Always room for you here, you know that. Hey, kid," he says to Jared. "You eat as much as you look like you do?"

"Um," says Jared.

"More," says Jensen with a laugh.

"Good. Because our last gig? We got paid in meat."

Jensen laughs and Jared says, "What?"

"I know I always say that no gig's too small, but don't ever fuckin' play for a smokehouse's company party, that's all I'm saying."

"At least you got paid this time," Jensen says.

"Good point. Beer's in the fridge if you want it."

There are a few other people there--Jared assumes they're the other guys in the band plus assorted girlfriends. Jensen seems to know them all, introduces them but Jared forgets their names after the first joint is passed around.

They sit in the cozy living room, sprawled on couches and second-hand arm chairs with burn marks in the cushions, then eat ribs and burgers and spicy sausage links. Jared's only smoked weed once before and he doesn't remember it being so strong. He's completely mellow and relaxed and so fucking happy. He eats a bunch of ribs and a burger and four or five sausages and he's happy and full.

"What?" he asks after he looks over and sees Jensen looking at him.

"You're smiling," Jensen says.

Jared laughs and shakes his head. "I'm always smiling."

"Yeah, but you're really smiling right now. You're totally baked, aren't you?"

Jared tries to stop smiling but he can't, so he just grins and nods.

The ceiling fan is spinning in slow, lazy circles and it's fascinating. Jared could watch it forever. He slouches back on the couch and listens to the conversation and watches the fan. He hears singing and only after it's been going on for a while does he realize that it's Jensen singing. Chris and Jensen both have guitars and while Chris is singing the main parts, Jensen's backing him up and his voice is just...God. It's perfect and sweet and Jared wonders how somebody so awesome can be so shy.

He realizes that he kind of wants to kiss Jensen right then and it just feels right, like something he's supposed to want. He watches Jensen sing, watches his fingers as they move over the guitar strings. The light glints off the silver thumb ring he wears. It's amazing. Jared wants to watch him forever.

"How many beers have you had?" Jensen asks softly. It's weird. Jared hadn't even seen Jensen move, but he's sitting right next to Jared on the couch.

"Like four, maybe," Jared says.

"And weed?"

Jared grins at him.

Jensen rolls his eyes. "Come on, party's breaking up. I think you need to sleep this off and I do not want to have to carry you up all those steps again." He pulls Jared to his feet, guides him down the hall to the room they'd been in before.

He leans happily against Jensen and laughs a little bit when Jensen drops him onto the bed. "You going to seduce me again?" he asks, reaching out to touch Jensen's arm.

Jensen freezes. "No," he says. "No, Jay, I wouldn't--" He stops talking when Jared leans up to kiss him.

"This is nice," Jared whispers against Jensen's mouth.

"You're stoned," Jensen whispers back.

Jared thinks that's pretty obvious and doesn't need a response. He kisses Jensen again, over and over, shivers at the feel of Jensen's mouth warm against his. He takes his time, slides his tongue over Jensen's lower lip and teeth, feels the inside of his mouth. Their mouths make soft, wet noises as they come together and pull apart.

"We can do anything," Jared tells him.

Jensen groans and tries to pull away.

Jared wraps his arms around Jensen's shoulders, pulls him close. "You can do anything you want to me. Everything."

"You're really high, Jay."

"Yeah," he whispers. He slides his hands down Jensen's back.

"You're high and you're horny."

"So fucking horny," Jared agrees. He kisses Jensen again, moans into his mouth. "Wanna do everything with you," he whispers.

Jensen shakes his head, tries to pull back again.

"Anything you want."

Jensen's groan turns into a humorless laugh. He pushes Jared back onto the bed and Jared grins at him.

"You need to sleep this off," Jensen says.

Jared reaches up and strokes Jensen's cheek. "You have a lot of freckles," he says. "I never noticed before. How come I never noticed your freckles before?"

"I'm gonna go get you some water."

"Don't need water."

"You really do."

"Need you," he whispers. He runs his fingers over the freckles on Jensen's nose, across his cheek. He grins. "You have freckles on your ears."

Jensen leaves for a minute, comes back with a bottle of water. "Drink this," he says.

"I don't like water."

"Humor me."

"It's not like I don't think about it," Jared murmurs. He's so comfortable and sleepy and warm. "It's not like I don't remember."

"Drink," says Jensen.

Jared huffs out a sigh and props himself up on one elbow, takes the bottle of water and drinks it. It's cool and fresh in his mouth and he keeps drinking until it's gone. "I think I was thirsty," he admits.

"Uh-huh."

Jared falls back onto the bed. "Come 'ere," he says.

"Go to sleep," Jensen says sternly.

Jared takes Jensen's hand, pulls it towards him, sucks the first two fingers into his mouth. He can't remember why, exactly, he'd wanted to suck on Jensen's fingers but it had seemed very, very important at the time. It's nice. They taste like Jensen. He wonders if that's what it's like to suck on a cock. He thinks it would probably taste different but still like Jensen.

Jensen pulls his hand away and stands up, moves away from the bed. "I deserve a freakin' medal for this," he mutters.

"For what?" Jared asks.

"Go to sleep," Jensen says again.

"Not tired."

"Then close your eyes and lie very still."

Jared grins. "What you gonna do to me when my eyes are closed?"

"Guess you're just going to have to close 'em and find out."

He laughs and closes his eyes.

"Lie very still," Jensen whispers.

"'kay."

"Now you just lie there, keep your eyes closed, don' t move until I get back."

Jared smiles and nods and keeps his eyes closed. He listens to the door open and close and falls asleep wondering how long it'll be before Jensen returns.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared and Jensen are college roommates. Jensen's gay and Jared's straight. Sort of.

Jared wakes up groggy and with a mouth that feels stuffed with cotton. He's a little disoriented at first, not quite sure where he is except for the fact that he's lying on a bare mattress with no pillow. He remembers when he sits up, remembers the way Jensen had kissed him, remembers the taste and how Jensen's mouth had opened against his and...yeah. Yeah, that had been nice. Except...oh. Jensen had turned him down.

He groans and flops back down onto the bed. He wants to die a little bit and not just because his head is throbbing. He rolls over onto his stomach, buries his head in his arms as if he could hide from the shame of coming on to his best friend and getting patronized in response. He may be a little bit gay, but he's obviously not very good at it.

He sort of has to pee but he's not going to get up. He's going to lie there and hopefully die of shame, possibly while curled into the fetal position.

He's afforded no such luxury. Not twenty minutes later the door opens and a far-too-cheerful voice crows, "Up and at 'em, hoss!"

Jared groans.

"Now, now, none of that." It's Chris speaking, he's pretty sure of it. "Man shouldn't consume what a man can't handle and it's nearly noon. Jenny's been drinking all my coffee and he's getting twitchy and it's time for all y'all to get back home."

Jared rolls over and sits up, swings his legs over the edge of the bed.

Chris is lounging in the doorway, grinning at him. "Eventually you'll learn to stop when you've had enough. Until then, though." He reaches out and hits the light switch, making the room swirl with multicolored points of light.

Jared groans again and Chris laughs. "Bathroom's down the hall to your right," he says before walking away.

Jared shuffles to the bathroom, takes the world's longest piss, then rinses his mouth out with cool water from the tap. He doesn't expect Jensen to be there in the hallway when he comes out, but he is.

"You all right?" Jensen asks.

Jared nods. He's dying of embarrassment, but other than that he's peachy.

"Good. I don't want you to puke in my truck."

"I won't," he says softly. He follows Jensen out of the house, grabbing his coat on the way. He's quiet on the way back, happy to let Jensen think he's more hungover than he really is. That way, at least, he doesn't have to talk, doesn't have to do anything but lean his head against the window and keep his eyes closed.

"About last night," he says softly as Jensen pulls into the parking lot. Turns out he can't keep his mouth shut even though he really, really doesn't want to talk about it. "I..." Fuck. He doesn't even know what to say.

"You were pretty fucking wasted last night," Jensen says. "Not really in a state to be responsible for your own actions."

Jared just nods. Jensen's giving him an easy out, so he might as well take it.

"Where were you two bitches last night?" Chad asks. He's lounging on the couch in the common room in nothing but his jockeys. Jared tries not to think about the other stuff he's probably done on the couch.

"Drinking," says Jensen.

"Without me?" Chad asks, honestly offended.

"It was just a little thing over at my cousin's," Jensen says. "I'd better hit the books." He disappears into the room he and Jared share and Jared takes a seat on the couch. He's pretty used to Chad lounging around in nothing but his underwear by now.

Jensen comes out a minute later with his backpack slung over one shoulder, "Library," his only explanation when he leaves.

Jared groans and leans back and covers his face with his hands.

"What's up?" Chad asks.

"Tired and hungover," Jared tells him.

"How'd your thing with what's-her-face go? You bang her?"

"Sandy," Jared says with a sigh, letting his arms drop to his sides. "And no. The Sandy thing is just not going to happen."

"That sucks," says Chad. He doesn't have any crude comments or insults to throw at Jared, and that's kind of weird. "What?" Chad asks.

"That sucks? That's all you're going to say? You're not going to tell me she's a bitch or a slut or that I'm a pussy for not sleeping with her?"

Chad shrugs. "Nah. Love shit's tough, man. You don't need me making it worse."

"Okay." Jared says, not sure what else to say. "I need a shower."

Chad hits his fist against his chest a couple times. "Keep your head up," he says. "Solidarity, yo."

Jared laughs and nods. "Yeah. Thanks."

It hits him in the middle of washing his hair. He's in love for maybe the first time ever; he's in love and Jensen doesn't love him back. He can't even pretend that the tears that rush up on him are from getting shampoo in his eyes. He presses his back to the tiled wall, slides down it and curls up in the cramped little cubicle, pulls his knees to his chest and shoves his fist in his mouth to stifle his sobs.

He stays that way, struggling to get himself under control, until the water runs cold. With that first rush of cool water, though, comes a tendril of hope. Jensen's response hadn't been, "You're not my type," or, "forget it ever happened." Jensen had said that Jared had been wasted, not responsible for his actions. Maybe, just maybe, Jensen had thought that Jared hadn't meant it.

He stands up, sticks his face under the cold water, and refreshed and clean, he heads back to his room. Jensen's not back, but that doesn't matter. All Jared has to do is tell him the truth--that he meant it, under the influence or not.

When Jensen get back from the library, though, Jared discovers that telling somebody you're maybe a little bit in love with them isn't as easy as it sounds. He means to say it, but instead what comes out is, "Hey."

"Hey," says Jensen. He sits at his desk and puts his headphones on and cracks open one of his huge textbooks and Jared slumps on his bed, feeling like a loser.

After a few minutes, Jared works up his courage and pushes himself up off his bed. He stands behind Jensen and looks over his shoulder. "What you studying?" he asks.

"Muscular anatomy," Jensen says. He makes a note next to one of the paragraphs then writes something in his notebook.

Jared's trying to think of a response to that, thinks that some sort of invitation for Jensen to study his anatomy might be good. Or really lame.

"Dude," says Jensen. "Personal space?"

"Yeah," says Jared, backing up. "Sorry." He goes back to his bed and puts on his headphones and tries to work up the courage to just say it.

Only, if he just says it, just lays it out like that, it would be easy for Jensen to shoot him down. If he takes a roundabout path, though, well Jensen could respond or not but Jared won't have to worry about a face to face rejection. He's really, really not looking for another face to face rejection.

On the walk to dinner he places his hand against the small of Jensen's back and rubs his thumb against Jensen's spine. While they're eating, he moves his leg to the side so that their thighs are touching. If Jensen notices something out of the ordinary, he doesn't show it. On the walk back to the dorm, Jared realizes he's going to have to step things up.

When Jensen reaches for the stereo remote, Jared reaches out and places his hand on the back of Jensen's neck, slides his hands up so his fingers slip through Jensen's hair.

Jensen turns but doesn't kiss him. Instead, he slams Jared against the wall. "Stop fucking teasing me," he growls.

"I'm not!"

"You are and I'm sick of it. I know it's probably a boost to your ego or whatever, but I'm done. No more. You don't know shit about me, Jay, because if you did you'd know that I'm not a nice guy."

"Of--of course you are," he stammers.

"I'm really not. I appreciate you being cool about this, I do, but you get drunk and come on to me one more time and I'm gonna end up fucking you blind." He shoves his thighs between Jared's legs. "That what you want, Jay? You want me to fuck you so hard you can't even see straight?"

Jared feels panic flare in his chest. He sucks in a shaky breath and shakes his head.

Jensen releases him with a shove. "I didn't fucking think so." He rakes his fingers through his hair and curses, then grabs his keys and is out of the room before Jared can even catch his breath.

He waits all night for Jensen to come back, but he never does.

Jensen doesn't come back the next day, either, or the day after that, though he notices that Jensen must have been home while Jared was at class since his books and some of his things are missing.

Jared calls Jensen's phone three or four times the next day but nobody answers. He sends him a text., _call me back_ , that never gets a reply.

Jared's pretty sure he's at Chris'. Jared's pretty sure he screwed everything up.

When it's Wednesday night and Jensen still hasn't come back, Jared swallows his pride and goes to Chad.

"Can I borrow your car?" he asks.

"For twenty bucks," Chad tells him. "Ow, woman!" he cries when Sophia smacks him in the back of the head. "What was that for?"

"Give him your keys, douche."

"It's my car!"

"And you never drive it. Give him the keys so he can go find Jensen."

Chad frowns. "What's wrong with Jensen?"

"If you paid attention to anything but yourself for more than two minutes at a time you'd know that Jensen hasn't been home in days. Give Jared your keys."

Chad frowns but doesn't argue, digs in his desk drawer for his keys and tosses them Jared's way. "Really?" he asks. "Days?"

Jared nods.

"And he's not just getting laid?"

Jared shakes his head.

Chad sighs and looks troubled. "OK. Fuck, dude. Call me if you need anything."

"I will," Jared tells him.

Chad's parked in the C lot and Jared jogs most of the way there. He's nervous on the drive, doesn't know what he's going to do if he's wrong and Jensen's not where he thinks he is.

He doesn't have to worry for long, though, since Jensen's truck is parked in his cousin's driveway. Jared parks Chad's Jeep behind it and gets out, heading towards the front door before he can wuss out.

He rings the doorbell and waits, is about to knock when the door opens and Chris is there, cowboy hat tipped back on his head, leaning against the doorframe and looking Jared up and down.

"You're not the pizza guy, are you?" he asks.

Jared shakes his head.

"Huh. Guess you got the wrong house, then."

"I just want to talk to him," Jared says.

Chris nods. "Figured."

"Can I come in?"

He shakes his head. "Nope. Don't think you can."

"It's all right," Jensen says from behind him.

Chris sighs and turns. "I swear to God, Jen--"

"I don't need protecting."

"No? Guess you don't remember last year very well then, do you? Because I swear to God, if I have to go through that again--"

"You won't," Jensen says. He reaches out and pushes the door open the rest of the way. "Come on in."

Jared looks at Chris, who just shakes his head and walks away, muttering, "Whatever."

"I was worried about you," he tells Jensen.

"I'm fine."

"You weren't answering my calls."

"Yeah, well, I was pretty embarrassed."

"About what?"

"Come on," Jensen says. He shuts the front door and leads Jared through the house to the room--Jensen's room. There are sheets and blankets on the bed and a few of the boxes have been opened. Jared pauses and looks at the bed. That's where it happened. That's where it all started.

Jensen sees him looking and says, "We can talk somewhere else."

"No," Jared says. He shuts the bedroom door behind him. "No, this is good."

"I'm...fuck. I'm sorry, Jay. I shouldn't have said that shit to you."

"No, if you thought I was teasing then you had every right to say it. I just. I wasn't. Teasing."

Jensen frowns. "Jay, you're not--"

"I don't know what I am. But you're not the first guy I've ever thought about. You just the only one that's been real."

"I can't do the straight boy thing again. I can't date a guy who's just going to be ashamed of me."

"I'm not," Jared says. "Not ashamed and not straight. Not completely, anyway. I mean I can't be. Not with the way I feel about you."

"And when you're over it?" Jensen asks.

"I'm not going to get over it."

"You say that now, but when your mom wants to know if you're dating anybody, you think you can tell her?"

"Yes."

"Really? Just like that?"

Jared pulls his phone out of his pocket, scrolls through his address book, hits dial for the number named _home_. It rings twice and his heart's pounding.

"Hello?" Megan answers.

"Hey, Meggie."

She scoffs. "Please do not call me that."

"Yeah. Um. So, I kind have to tell you something."

"You've finally cut that mop you call your hair?"

"No. Um." Jensen's staring at him, eyes wide. "I think I'm kinda gay," he blurts. "Or bi, maybe. I don't know. I haven't quite figured it out, yet."

Megan's silent for a moment, then she cries, "I knew it! Are you dating Jensen?"

"Um, not yet. But I really like him and I think he likes me."

"I hate you so much. You could have just _told_ me he was gay, you giant pigfucker. I wore a _skirt_."

Jared laughs. "Sorry. It wasn't my place to tell you and I kind of hadn't figured things out about myself, yet. Um, I have to go."

"You called to tell me you're gay and you're just going to hang up?"

"Um...yes? And since when do you use the word 'pigfucker?' You know Mama'll wash your mouth out."

Megan sighs. "Whatever. Can I tell Mama and Daddy?"

"I'd really rather tell them myself."

"Fine. Jerk."

"Love you, too," Jared says, hanging up the phone.

Jensen's mouth is open. He lifts his hand, points at Jared, shakes his head. "Did you just...?"

"I'm serious, Jensen. I know that I don't know everything and I know that this is maybe weird but if you're interested, I really, really, really want to give us a chance. No lying. No hiding. I promise."

"Oh, fuck you," Jensen says, but he's moving forward as he says it, cups his hand around the back of Jared's neck and pulls him down for a kiss. "I can't believe you just did that, so easy, like it was nothing," he says when they part.

"I don't know about easy," says Jared. "I might need to sit down." He's shaky and his legs feel weak, and he doesn't think it's just from the kiss.

Jensen guides him to the bed and they sit on the edge.

"I just came out to my sister," Jared says, flopping onto his back. "That's...OK. A little scary."

"Yeah," Jensen says, stretching out next to him. He touches Jared's lips with his fingertips. "Are you OK?"

He nods.

"You sure?"

"I think I'd like to go back to the kissing, now."

Jensen smiles down at him and leans in for another kiss. They scoot around until their heads are on the pillows and they lie gazing at one another.

"You sure you're all right?" Jensen asks.

"I thought you didn't like to talk about feelings."

"I don't like to talk about _my_ feelings. Yours are fine."

Jared sighs and curls up against him. He's turned on but it's all right, he doesn't need anything else than to feel Jensen's body next to his.

They lay there in silence for a long time, fingers intertwined, exchanging small kisses.

"This is nice," Jared whispers, "just like this." He groans when his phone rings.

"Don't answer it," Jensen whispers in between kisses.

"OK." He ignores the phone and it stops ringing, only to start up again thirty seconds later. "Fuck." He fumbles it out of his pocket and looks at the display. "It's Chad. I borrowed his car to get here." He flips his phone open. "Hey, Chad."

"Dude. What's going on? Did you find him? Why didn't you call me?"

Jared smiles. "He's fine. Sorry I didn't call."

"Fuck sorry. Just call next time."

"OK," Jared says. "Later."

"Wait--" is all Chad gets out before Jared flips his phone closed.

"Chad was worried about you," he tells Jensen.

Jensen smiles against his kiss. "Really?"

"I told you he's not a bad guy, just kind of a douche sometimes." His phone rings again and he groans, flips it open. "I said he was fine, Chad. And we're going to have sex, now, so unless you feel like listening to two guys going at it, don't call back." He turns his phone off and tosses it to the ground.

Jensen laughs and kisses him over and over again. "You're serious about not keeping this a secret, aren't you?"

Jared nods.

"And sex? Really? Right now?"

Jared feels himself blush. "I...if you want."

"What do you want?"

"I don't know," he admits. "I want you."

"I'm the only guy you've ever been with?"

"You're the only anybody I've ever been with."

Jensen takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, then sits up.

"What? No. Where are you going?" Jared asks, reaching for him.

"We're going to take it slow," Jensen tells him. "I don't want you to do anything you're going to regret."

"I won't," Jared says. "I promise. I just...come back here."

Jensen smiles at him, leans down for a soft kiss. "Come on. Help me get my stuff together."

"Kissing," says Jared. "Kissing's good."

Jensen kisses him quickly, then gets up off the bed and starts picking up clothes and books. After a minute, Jared sighs and helps him. He knows he's pouting but he can't help it. He'd really rather be making out than packing Jensen's bags, even if it does mean Jensen's coming back to the dorm.

"That was a lot of work," Jared says after a couple of minutes. "I think I deserve a reward."

Jensen laughs and kisses him and, God, Jared's dizzy just from that. It feels so perfect just to take Jensen's head in his hands and kiss him and feel his body so close.

Jensen pulls away again, smiles and pats Jared's chest. "Later," he says.

"Now," Jared whispers.

"Come on. Let's load up the truck."

Jared grumbles but he does it.

"I'll follow you in a minute," Jensen says, reaching up to touch Jared's cheek. "I should talk to Chris."

"'kay," Jared says. He drives Chad's Jeep back to school slowly, hoping that Jensen catches up to him. He's been parked for nearly six minutes when Jensen's truck finally pulls into the lot.

"You wait for me?" Jensen asks.

"Maybe," Jared admits, taking Jensen's duffle bag out of the truck bed.

It's a long walk back to the dorms and Jared's nervous. He's obviously more than a little bit gay and he, God, he came out to his sister and to Chad, and he should really be naked. Not that moment, not with how low the temperatures are and how he really doesn't want frostbite on some of his more tender parts, but he and Jensen could be naked, they could have gotten naked at Chris' and...done stuff. He's not sure what, exactly, but he knows it would have been good. He doesn't really want anything up his butt, but he really, really wants Jensen to suck him again and he's pretty sure he wants to suck Jensen's cock.

"Second thoughts?" Jensen asks as they reach the dorm.

Jared shakes his head, fumbles in his jeans pocket for his key card to let them in. "No, just...I don't know."

"Because you can, you know," Jared says after they climbed the first set of stairs. "Have second thoughts. If you ever don't want to--"

"I do," Jared says. He drops the duffle on the second floor landing and grabs Jensen's arm and spins him around and, God, he's so amazingly beautiful, pink spots of color high on his cheekbones and that mouth that Jared just has to taste. He moves forward and Jensen tips his head up and they're kissing again and Jared is definitely not having second thoughts.

"When we get back to the room," Jared whispers, "I am going to take all your clothes off and do very, very dirty things to you."

"Promise?" Jensen asks breathlessly, his hands twisted in Jared's coat.

Jared nods and kisses him again and he's not sure he can make it another flight of stairs and into the room. He might have to start undressing Jensen right there in the stairwell where anyone could see.

"Jared?"

He looks up quickly and blanches. "Sandy?"

Jensen pulls away and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, looks away from both of them.

Sandy's standing halfway down the next flight of stairs, hand on the railing. "You weren't answering your phone," she says. "And I..." She laughs softly and shakes her head. "This is, um...OK. Unexpected."

"I..." Jared doesn't know what to say. "I didn't--"

"Whatever," she says. She shakes her head again and hurries down the steps, hurries past him and keeps going, her boots clomping on the stairs.

"Go after her," Jensen whispers.

Jared sighs.

"Go on," Jensen tells him. "If you want to keep her, you have to go after her now."

Jensen's shoulders are hunched up and he's staring blankly at the floor in front of his feet. Jared moves towards him and reaches up to stroke Jensen's cheek. "You really are an idiot," he says.

Jensen looks up at him sharply.

"I'm not going after her. It sucks that she found out this way, but she's not the one I want. You got that?"

"You could, though," Jensen tells him. "You could have a girl and be normal."

Jared smiles at him. "Do you think I've ever really been normal?"

"You know what I mean."

"And you're an idiot." He picks up Jensen's duffle bag and slings it over his shoulder. "Come on. Let's get you unpacked."

They walk the rest of the way to their room in silence.

"Sandy just came by," Adam says, not looking up from his Xbox game. "You guys were supposed to go out tonight, I guess."

"Yeah," says Jared. "I, uh, ran into her in the hall." Jensen keeps walking, heads into their room. "Thanks," he says and follows Jensen in. He shuts and locks the door behind him.

"I mean it, Jay," Jensen says softly, dropping his backpack next to his desk. "If you want to be normal--"

"Well, obviously I'm _not_ , so wanting doesn't seem to have shit to do with it," he snaps. "I'm not that guy, OK? I'm not Tom. I'm not going to throw you over for some girl."

"Maybe you should."

"Maybe you're an asshole."

Jensen looks up at him and laughs. "What?"

"My fucking heart's on a platter right now, OK? It's you that I want, and if you don't want me then, fine, but just say it, don't try to turn it around and--"

Jensen kisses him hard, fists his hands in Jared's shirt. "I want you," he whispers against Jared's mouth.

Jared nods. "OK."

Jensen presses his face to Jared's neck, doesn't kiss him or bite, just lays his head there. He relaxes his hold on Jared's shirt, slides his hands around Jared's waist. Jared's arms come up and they just hold on to each other for a long time.

Finally, Jared tugs on Jensen's arm, says, "Come on." They shed coats and boots and end up on Jared's bed, Jared flat on his back, Jensen lying half over him. His buries his head against Jared's shoulder again and Jared can feel the strong, fast beat of his heart.

"Wanted you for a long time," Jensen whispers. His breath is hot against Jared's throat.

"Yeah?"

Jensen nods. "Ever since that movie, that terrible kung-fu movie, when you were laughing into my shoulder. Made my stomach flip. Thought I'd get over it."

"You didn't?"

"No." He kisses the side of Jared's neck. "You had to be such a fucking nice guy, didn't you? Had to be more than just sex on legs."

Jared feels himself blush. "I'm sex on legs?" His voice comes out a lot tighter and a lot less casual than he wants it to.

"Mmm." Jensen nods, kisses his throat again.

When Jared slides his hand up Jensen's back, his thumb gets caught on the hem of Jensen's t-shirt and rucks it up. Jensen's skin is warm against his fingers and Jensen pushes himself up, grins at Jared before taking his shirt off. His chest is nice, strong without being buffed-up. Jared runs his hands over it, grins and hooks his leg over Jensen's--the better to flip him over.

"Hey, now," Jensen says with a laugh. Then Jared pulls his own shirt off and Jensen doesn't complain, just runs his hands up and down Jared's bare arms. "Total sex on legs," he says in a low purr.

"Am not," Jared whispers as he leans down for another kiss, though he kind of feels like he is. Having Jensen look at him like that, want him so much, it's more of a turn on than he ever thought it could be. Jensen wanting him back makes it so much hotter.

Jensen flips them back over, kissing Jared deeply. His hips start to rock and, God, it feels amazing. Jared spreads his legs, lets Jensen settle in between them. He's rock hard and he can feel Jensen's cock rubbing against his own between layers of clothing.

"Want," Jared whispers, his hands moving down to his waist. He tugs at Jensen's fly and Jensen's right there with him, pushing up to get his jeans down. Jared unfastens his own jeans just enough to shove them down his thighs and then they're rubbing together again, cock to cock. The weight of Jensen's body over his is one of the best things Jared has ever felt and he grips Jensen's ass to pull him down even harder.

He waits for the weird to start but it never does. That's definitely Jensen's ass in his hands, definitely Jensen's cock against his, definitely Jensen's balls against his thigh but it's not weird, it's really, really hot. He loves the way Jensen's ass flexes every time he thrusts, loves the soft grunts and moans against his ear.

"Shh," Jensen warns, but he's laughing.

"Feels so good," Jared says as he pushes up and rolls them onto their sides. He wraps one leg around Jensen's thighs, pulls him close. "God," he groans.

Jensen laughs again and puts one hand over Jared's mouth. "Quiet," he whispers.

Jared parts his lips and sucks Jensen's fingers into his mouth, remembers doing it before and how he'd wanted to know if that was what Jensen's cock tasted like. He runs his hands over Jensen's skin, everything he can reach, keeps kissing and rocking against him.

Jensen's eyes are closed and he's moaning low in the back of his throat, fucking Jared's mouth with his fingers.

Jared pulls his mouth away and whispers, "Wanna try something."

"Yeah," Jensen says breathlessly. "Anything." He lets Jared push him onto his back, just sprawls bonelessly there against the wall.

"Move over here," Jared tells him, tugging on his hips until Jensen moves back into the middle of the narrow twin bed. Jared wishes they were still at Chris's for the bigger bed if nothing else. That and the fact that he has to hunch over to keep from hitting his head on the top bunk.

He kisses his way down Jensen's chest, feels Jensen's stomach tense against his lips.

"You don't have to," Jensen whispers.

"Want to," he says, and he does. Mostly. He doesn't let himself think about it too long, just darts his tongue out and runs it over the head of Jensen's cock. It's not weird, really, and it makes Jensen's suck in a shaky breath, which is cool. He does it again, then once more. It tastes like skin and a little bit like come, which is more of a turn on than he thought it would be. There's a little bit of pre-come at the slit and he laps it up, making Jensen shiver.

"Kiss it," Jensen whispers.

Jared looks up at him, sees that Jensen's propped up on his elbows, watching.

"Like this?" he asks. He doesn't look away from Jensen's gaze as he gently kisses the tip.

Jensen's eyes flutter closed and he nods. "Yeah," he sighs as Jared plants soft kisses along the shaft. He's not sure what to do, really, so he does what Jensen had done to him, taking his cock in his fist and stroking it as he leans down to kiss Jensen's balls.

"Close," Jensen whispers. "Really close, Jay."

Jared looks up at him, "I don't know if I can...in my mouth, I..."

"Just keep touching me, k?"

Jared nods, squeezes Jensen's cock a little tighter in his fist. "All right?"

"Good." Jensen rubs his chest, pinches his nipples. "So, so good."

"You look so hot like this," Jared tells him. "So fucking hot. God. I'm gonna jerk off for years thinking about this."

Jensen stills, then grunts once and Jared feels his come splash up onto his chest and arm. It's so hot to watch that he fumbles with his left hand for his own cock, strokes it three or four times, and comes across Jensen's cock and belly.

"You good?" Jensen asks breathlessly as Jared stretches out next to him.

"Mmm." Jared nods, stretches his arm across Jensen's chest. "So good," he says as he slides quickly towards sleep.

When he wakes up, the lights are still on and the clock says it's 2:38am. He gets up to turn the lights off, hurries back to the bed where Jensen's still asleep, his head propped on one arm, his back to the wall.

Jared sits on the edge of the bed, pulls his knees up to his chest, wraps his arms around his legs, stares at the far wall.

Jensen sits up behind him after a while, strokes Jared's shoulder as he kisses the back of his neck. "You all right?" he asks, his voice thick with sleep.

"Yeah," Jared says absently, sighing when he feels the soft press of Jensen's mouth down his spine. Jensen's hands are warm on his cool skin.

"Are you freaking out?"

Jared turns his head so they can kiss. "No," he says. And he's not, not really. He's a little overwhelmed, but he's not freaking out. He's not sad, but he kind of wants to cry. "I wasn't expecting anything," he whispers.

Jensen nuzzles against his shoulder, waits for him to go on.

"I know people talk about sex like it's this huge deal and I just...I thought it was bullshit. I didn't expect it to feel like such a big deal."

Jensen nods.

"Because it is, right? This is a big deal?"

"Yeah," Jensen whispers. He kisses Jared's shoulder. "Yeah, when you're with somebody important, it's a big deal."

"Am I?" Jared asks, turning to face him. "Important to you?"

Jensen nods.

"You're important to me, too," Jared whispers before kissing him gently. He slides under the covers next to Jensen, snuggles close. It's a tight fit in the narrow bed, but he likes being that close.

"Go to sleep," Jensen whispers before kissing the tip of his nose.

"OK."

The next thing Jared knows, it's 7:30 and his alarm is blaring. "Make it stop," he moans, reaching out to slap his alarm clock into silence.

Jensen mumbles something but doesn't wake up.

It's Thursday morning. He has an 8am pre-calc class and a professor who likes to give surprise quizzes. He groans and covers his face with his hands.

"'s wrong?" Jensen asks sleepily.

"I have class," Jared moans.

"Mmm."

"It's not fair. I just...we did this amazing thing last night and now I have to go to class like it's just a normal day?"

Jensen mumbles something that sounds like, "Skip it," and slides his arm around Jared's waist.

"We had sex last night," Jared says.

"Mmm-hmm."

"I really liked it."

Jensen sighs softly against his cheek.

"We should have more sex. Like, a lot more sex. Maybe right now."

Jensen sighs again and Jared can tell that he's falling back to sleep.

Jared stares up at the bottom of the top bunk for a while and contemplates skipping class. In the end, though, the guilt wins out and he just can't do it. He takes a quick shower and when he's back in the room getting dressed, he catches sight of a bruise right where his shoulder meets his neck. He leans towards the mirror and inspects it, realizes it's a hickey. There's the faint hint of teeth marks on his jaw, bruises shaped like fingertips on his ribs. _Jensen did that,_ he thinks, wonders if Jensen's got similar marks from Jared.

He looks over at Jensen, still asleep in his bed, and he wants to check, to explore Jensen's body from top to bottom but it's 7:50 and he's going to have to run to class as it is.

After pre-calc (where there was a quiz) he has Intro to Geology (where there's not). He has lab right after lecture and most everybody else seems to have skipped it so he gets to talk a lot to his professor. He mentions his interest in caves and his professor talks enthusiastically about cave geology and before he knows it, he's got an appointment to talk with his professor about maybe becoming a geology major.

It's a lot to think about, coming as it does right on the heels of realizing that he's more than a little gay and in love with his best friend and has just lost his virginity after eighteen years of hopelessness. He heads towards the dining hall with a flutter in his belly. Jensen doesn't have physics lab on Thursdays so he usually meets them for lunch. He hopes Jensen meets them for lunch and isn't freaked out and disgusted and running half the way to Mexico by now.

"You're not going to try and Queer Eye me now, are you?" Chad asks, falling into step next to him as he nears the dining hall.

Jared looks over at him, unsure of what to say.

"Because I gotta tell you, I do not need a makeover."

"I won't Queer Eye you," he says softly. He wouldn't even know where to start and, God, is he supposed to know stuff like that? Because he totally doesn't know stuff like that.

"Dude, tuna surprise," Chad says forlornly as he looks at the cafeteria's menu board. "I hope the alternate's better."

Jared doesn't mention that he likes the cafeteria's tuna surprise, partly because he knows Chad would give him shit for it and partly because Sandy's standing there with a group of her friends, looking at him like a deer caught in the headlights.

"Um," says Jared, "can I have a second?"

Chad shrugs and walks into the cafeteria without a second glance.

"Hey," Jared says as Sandy's friends hurry off down the hall.

Sandy crosses her arms in front of her chest. "Hey," she says coldly. "You know, I know I was a bitch to you, but I don't deserve to be--"

"It didn't, it just happened," he says. "I didn't plan it."

She sighs and looks away from him and, God, he's going to hell for making a girl cry.

"I really didn't. When I went out with you, I wasn't try to lie or hide or anything. I really did like you at first."

"At first," she repeats.

"I don't know. After that whole thing at the party...I guess I thought I could get over it but...I don't know."

She nods.

"I'm really sorry you had to find out like that."

Sandy wets her lips and nods. "So. I'd say we could stay friends, but we never were friends, were we?"

"Guess not," Jared says softly. "I really didn't plan it. I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know that, I guess," she tells him. She looks like she's about to say something else but she doesn't say anything, just turns and walks away.

Jared watches her walk off, only realizes that he's holding his breath once she's around the corner and he lets it out.

He loads up his tray and heads towards the table where Chad and Adam are pretending not to watch him walk up,

"So," Chad says a minute after Jared sits down. "Sandy looked pissed."

"She's just..." Jared shrugs, hunches in his shoulders as he looks down at his plate of tuna surprise. "I don't know."

Chad laughs and rolls his eyes. "Yeah. You have _no idea_ why she's pissed at you. It couldn't be because she just found out you're more interested in cock than snatch."

"Don't say snatch," says Adam, shaking his head. "Only dirty people say snatch."

"I say snatch," says Chad.

"Which proves my point."

"Bitch." Chad dismisses Adam with a scoff. "Seriously, bro, you wanna fuck guys, whatever. But no chick wants to find out she's just a beard."

"She's not," Jared says. "She wasn't, I mean I didn't expect...fuck." He drops his head down, then looks up at Chad. "And you told him?"

"No," says Adam, dipping his fries into a pool of ketchup, "but you do realize that we share a suite, right? You do realize that you're not exactly _quiet_."

Jared groans.

"My mom's a lesbian," Adam tells him, "so it's not like it's a big deal or whatever. Just...yeah. Not really a secret after last night."

"Your mom's a lesbian?" Chad asks. "Dude!"

Adam sighs.

"Do you ever get to watch her make out with other chicks?"

"She's my _mom_ you fucking weirdo. Do you watch your mom making out with other chicks?"

"My mom's not a lesbian. Also, not as hot as your mom."

"I'm going to kill myself," Adam says conversationally. "Really. I'm just going to slit my wrists right here with this plastic knife."

"Emo bitch," says Chad. "Why don't you just fucking blog about it? And how have I roomed with you for over a semester and you never told me your mom fucks other chicks?"

"Because I was pretty sure you'd react just like this. Oh, shit, it's Rachel." He ducks his head down, glances up at her, looks down again. "Fuck. If she's pissed at me because you're my friend and Sandy's her friend and therefore she has to hate me by association I am so kicking your ass." He looks up at Jared. "Or, you know, I'll just complain about it incessantly because ass kicking? Not really my thing. Especially kicking the asses of guys who are, like, a foot taller than me. Not that you're an entire foot taller than me you're just, you know, kind of unnaturally huge."

Chad sighs. "I miss Tiny."

Jared lets out an offended huff. "He watched me sleep with a knife in his hands. He assaulted the Dean of the School of Architecture. How can you miss Phil?"

"At least Tiny didn't fuck you up the ass."

Jared feels his face heat up, knows he's blushing dark red. "God," he says. "We didn't do _that_."

"Well, how the fuck am I supposed to know? The guys in porn always fuck in the ass."

"Wait," says Adam. "You watch gay porn?"

"I watch _all_ porn," Chad tells him.

"I really didn't need to know that."

"I'm not the one sucking cock. You guys do suck each other's cocks, right?"

Jared groans and shakes his head. "Can we never talk about this, oh, ever again?"

Chad shrugs. "Whatever. Hey, Jensen."

"Hey," Jensen says, taking the seat next to Jared's. He looks around the quiet table, Adam and Chad both looking at him, Jared staring down at his tray. "What's up?"

"They both know," Jared tells him.

Jensen nods, looks from Adam to Chad. "This going to be a problem?"

"Nah," says Chad. "Just, you know. Keep it down."

"You fuck your girlfriend _while I'm in the room_ ," Adam tells him.

"Which is more action than you'll ever see for the rest of your life. So you're welcome. Also, Adam's mom does other chicks."

"You're making her sound promiscuous," Adam says. "She's not. She's in a committed relationship."

"With another chick," Chad says.

"It is kinda hot," says Jared.

Jensen laughs.

"I hate you all," Adam tells them.

While Adam and Chad continue to bicker, Jensen presses his foot against Jared's. "You all right?" he asks softly.

Jared nods. "Yeah." He turns to look at Jensen and his breath actually catches in his throat. He knows he probably has a ridiculous smile on his face, but he's so freaking happy that he can't help it. "You?"

"Fantastic," Jensen whispers, leaning towards him.

It's a small kiss, just barely a brush of their lips together. It feels huge. Jared's kissing his boyfriend in public. Hell, the fact that Jared even has a boyfriend feels huge, let alone the fact that anyone who looks at them will know it.

"Hey," says Chad, "happy couple. Break it up before I puke. Nobody needs to see true love while they're trying to eat."

Jared pulls away, blushing. He looks around and no one's staring at them. It felt like such a huge, important thing, kissing Jensen where everyone could see, and no one even noticed. He moves his leg so it's pressing against the entire length of Jensen's, then digs in to eat his lunch.


End file.
